Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit • Hacker News Board

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#271

Post by sanderjd » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 5:43 AM UTC

raldi wrote: post #139

jefftk wrote: post #24

What's depressingly hilarious is that employees generally hated this behavior, because useful information would often disappear before you were done with it. For example, someone answers your question on Friday after you've left and when you check messages on Monday it's gone. Or you'd want to refer to something from a conversation a few days ago and it'd been deleted as well.

I was working there when this happened, and I definitely remember thinking, "Well, no point in writing a detailed email full of information that will be useful in the future, because in 30 days it'll be gone anyway." Even more frustrating was finding myself in a situation where I remembered an old email that would be enormously helpful, either because of the information in it, or because I could reuse the bulk of som…

Always wise to cc that kind of thing to a team-foo alias...

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#272

Post by znep » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 5:53 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #216

akira2501 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have a contact you remember who emailed you three years about a thing... you'll never find them again. Same problem. So, I asked the company IT staff, what is the recommended solution? The answer was "oh, just create a folder on your network drive, and drag-and-drop the .MSG files into there." This answer was apparently vetted by the same company lawyers that came up with the 2 year retention policy in the firs…

If you make a personal copy it's not in the email system, and they can reasonably say they couldn't find it, since they aren't going to search everyone's desktops for errant emails.

Even Google can't solve all the downsides of things being in the cloud.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#273

Post by znep » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:04 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #231

asah wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except that the harmless written word is notoriously easy to quote out of context and otherwise use "against you" in court. At google's scale, it's virtually impossible to NOT have mountains of "incriminating" conversations. Also, it seems arbitrary that OTR chat should be recorded but hallway conversations and phonecalls are ok to delete...

> harmless written word is notoriously easy to quote out of context and otherwise use "against you" in court. Do you believe lawyers and judges are unfamiliar with this issue? Like their entire lives are spent reviewing documents, letters and email. They invented the concept of Disclosure before computers existed, so that Defence can rebut or put proper context to any argument that will be made by prosecution.

True, now they are just used against you in the press when they get released one way or another, legally or not.

Then, the entire point for some lawsuits existing is to set the stage for that information to come out for no good legal reason.

You can think of it as legal hacking.

I regret writing that last sentence.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#274

Post by arrosenberg » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:05 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #206

bb88 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the CIA destroyed the torture video tapes to prevent embarrassment and further prosecutions of it's employees. So it kinda goes both ways.

You are demonstrating scary level of Moral Confusion. CIA operates in the National interest, at least hypothetically. Google can operate against national interest to make money, or 'whoever pays most' interest. The people of USA have granted CIA privileges of secrecy and legal protections explicitly to do ShadyShit. No-one ever gave Google permission to do ShadyShit. CIA employees go through background checks, US Gov…

> US Gov can fire head of CIA for being a dick.

Just don't go driving around Dallas in an open top limo if you do.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#275

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:17 AM UTC

celdon25 wrote: post #252

dylan604 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if the broken up companies then start trimming staff because of the uncertainty of operating with corporate daddy any more. What was a stable company now becomes unstable and the ultimately, it is the employees that suffer

Would you rather have an unstable company or an unstable industry, or even an unstable society if certain abuses go unchecked for long enough? And being without a job is less painful when there are more companies competing with each other and incentivized to innovate and therefore grow.

I was just pointing out that at the end of the day, it is the employees that pay the price for the leadership being asshats.

I want people that dictate that a company does evil to pay the same price as if they were doing the same thing without the corporate shield. If felons lose the right to vote and are prevented from other rights afforded to other citizens, then corporate felons should also lose rights like never being able to lead a company, pay fines, as well as possibly being a guest of the state.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#276

Post by gameman144 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:24 AM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #257

gameman144 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I'd identify as a capitalist and there are definitely lots of evil things far worse than loss of capital. Capitalism need not imply anarchy or surrendering our moral compass.

According to far too many, a corporation's sole duty is to the enrichment of its shareholders. I speak not of an ideal capitalism, but of capitalism as it is practiced.

Oh, I agree that that's what corporations should be doing -- I just trust my government to give them laws and regulations to follow, to steer the lumbering economic engine to the goals that we as society value. (I also tend to think that companies that people think are good tend to last and have broad social support, so doing good does have merits even to bloodthirsty capitalists).

If companies break those laws or regulations, the penalties should be extremely steep (I imagine we probably agree on this bit, but let me know if not).

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#277

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:26 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #269

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #133

Funny how Google can ignore the privacy of internet users' conversations but when it comes to their employees' conversations, Google does not want to share those with the Government. According to the Government's memo supporting sanctions, Google is deleting conversations within 24h despite being under litigation holds. https://ia902501.us.archive.org/21/items/gov.uscourts.dcd.22... Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt app…

> Funny how Google can ignore the privacy of internet users' conversations but when it comes to their employees' conversations, Google does not want to share those with the Government. According to the Government's memo supporting sanctions, Google is deleting conversations within 24h despite being under litigation holds. It's kind of weird that we've turned formerly ephemeral things into "evidence" just because they…

[deleted]

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#278

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:31 AM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #261

bb88 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that I have a hard time see the Justice Department bring charges for destroying evidence when they didn't do a darn thing against those that did do evil things under the name of the US.

Justice for nobody then! What a great philosophy.

More like people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

They should prioritize prosecuting other parts of the government for known offenses. Then when those high level officials are serving long prison sentences they can take the same action against private entities without looking like hypocrites.

If they're the good guys.

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#279

Post by CobrastanJorji » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:38 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #248

tantalor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is, if you are on a lit hold and preserving some of your written communications, then you have to preserve all of them. You can't decide to shield some of them. That makes sense, I guess, but why would that not apply to verbal communications as well?

> why would that not apply to verbal communications as well Because total surveillance has never been goal or precedent. The legal profession has always understood that people act differently when they speak and when they write. It is unrealistic to hold people accountable to every mis-spoken word, mistake or dumb thing they have said in spur of the moment. If I ask someone 'how long will X take' and they must answer…

> If I ask someone 'how long will X take' and they must answer on the spot, I do not expect an accurate answer.

Man, you and my boss are not the same person!

Re: Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

#280

Post by vorpalhex » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 6:40 AM UTC

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #164

vorpalhex wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I suppose it never occurred to you that the "issue" could be an example of a battle in a culture war. The culture here is capitalism. Capitalism is a worship of capital and its acquisition by any means. Including pushing for new fuels that give 25% of people cancer, or by breaking unions that are trying to prevent East Palestines, or by classifying people as "independent contractors" to avoid paying for benefits, or…

What economic system do you think this wouldn't happen under?

I'd like to point out that it was specifically the Whitehouse, under Biden, which withdrew the ability of train unions to negotiate via strike. That isn't capitalism. That was an administration making a choice because they felt additional grocery store shortages would hurt their polling numbers. That wasn't the free market - that was Government Intervention.

And why is it that gigs where people are ICs are desirable? Why do so many people work for Uber? If it's a bad gig, why take it? I've talked to a lot of Uber drivers and they like it - they can work as much or as little as they want and adapt their driving to their income needs. That doesn't sound like "capitalism".

Capitalism, as you use it here, might as well be Satan. Lost your lunch? That was Satan. Tripped on the way to school? Satan again. It's everywhere, it's the thing always at fault, no further explanation needed. It's a word that says "stop thinking, we have the cause of the problem - it's Capitalism".