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Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

wsj.com

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

#301

Post by JumpCrisscross »

voakbasda wrote: post #95
theptip wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just tech; we're seeing this pressure in finance too. Matt Levine joked about this recently: > It really is wild that the SEC’s official position is now that it is illegal to “use unofficial communications to do things like cut deals, win clients or make trades.” “Conduct their communications about business matters within only official channels”! Imagine if that was really the rule! You can’t have lunch with a cl…

I'd be completely in favor of this... if first the politicians, lawmakers, and bureaucrats were all held to the same standard.

> if first the politicians, lawmakers, and bureaucrats were all held to the same standard

Then you will have engineered a world free of compromise. Every meeting becomes posturing, because every proposed concession becomes a liability before it can be considered by the other side. (And you know they're similarly constrained.)

We're now learning the Cuban missile crisis was not resolved through blind boldness, but through the sort of open dialogue only possible over covert channels [1][2].

[1] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-cuban-missile-c...

[2] https://mondediplo.com/2023/02/12cuban-missile-crisis

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

#302

Post by izacus »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #249
avalys wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To roll with your 1950s analogy, it feels a lot more like the office secretaries being told that instead of shredding inter-office memos, they have to hold on to them. There are still interoffice memos in a modern office - they're called emails. But in 1950, if you wanted to just ask a quick question of your colleague Joe, you'd walk over to his office and ask him verbally. Regulators understood that these sorts of…

> But in 1950, if you wanted to just ask a quick question of your colleague Joe, you'd walk over to his office and ask him verbally. Have we lost legs? >Today, if you want to ask a quick question of your colleague Joe (who might be in a different state), you just send him a message on Slack What would you use in 1950's, a phone, a letter? Have we lost phones? Do you think preserving paper letters was easier than pres…

> Have we lost legs?

How do you walk to your colleague when you WFH? I remember topics here where mandatory office was deemed a crime against humanity on HN.

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

#303

Post by izacus »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #253
avalys wrote: post #100

This is regulatory and legal overreach. Yes, there are laws about preserving evidence and records. However, these laws haven't been updated to reflect how office communication has changed over the years. No one would propose, circa 1950, that companies must record every conversation between two people in the office for regulatory compliance or lawsuit discovery, etc. purposes. But effectively, that's what retention r…

> requiring every employee to wear a body camera This comparison is all over the thread and it's stupid. Camera captures things you don't want to be seen - taking a piss, flirting, having a brainfart and saying something dumb. Sending a message is an active choice - don't send a picture of yourself pissing, flirt somewhere else, make sure it's not dumb before you click send. It's a tool for work communication, not pe…

> It's a tool for work communication, not personal What's app.

This isn't true for remote work.

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

#304

Post by baq »

jamwil wrote: post #288
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I al hoping that one day American society will wake up to the fact that Tyranny can, and has been privatised. It is not only the state that you should be afraid of.

Surveillance capitalism is several orders of fucked up, but to call it tyranny is pretty dismissive of the plight of people living under actual tyranny.

There’s a point where the difference disappears, we aren’t there yet, but in a way walking in that direction happy as sheep. Grass is green and there’s only a couple dogs around and they don’t bite, mostly, so all is fine.

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

#305

Post by baq »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #222
hedora wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google’s the primary beneficiary of the DMCA, and also the US’s criminally lax privacy laws. Sounds like corporate welfare to me.

The way I understood that sentence, was that Google is providing Corporate Welfare to 130,000+ of it's employees.

A better term is adult daycare.

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

#307

Post by IntelMiner »

hedora wrote: post #212
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To Schmidt, and 130,000+ other people on Google's corporate welfare You are probably using the wrong expression. Corporate Welfare means Welfare for Corporations. So it's when a government bestows money grants, tax breaks, or other special favourable treatment for corporations. It is nothing to do with employees, not paying excessive salaries, or keeping unproductive ones around. It does not imply that main benefic…

Google’s the primary beneficiary of the DMCA, and also the US’s criminally lax privacy laws. Sounds like corporate welfare to me.

I'd say Disney is the primary beneficiary of the DMCA, and copyright law in general

But that's more just a condemnation on how sickeningly large American media empires are now

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

#309

Post by nullc »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #250
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…

Remember, Google is evil now. Even the Devil himself believes he’s doing the right thing because “doing right” is completely subjective. Anything is possible when values are pliable. https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...

"Do the right thing" was the motto of the perpetrator of every great evil in human history.

Okay sure, perhaps some serial killers knew they were doing the wrong thing but you don't commit genocide unless you've convinced yourself that you're doing the right thing.

To do evil on a grand scale you must have righteousness and conviction in abundance.

"Don't be evil" at least admits the possibility of asking "Wait. are we the baddies?" and answering it with something other than "Of course not, we Do the Right Thing".

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

#310

Post by rightbyte »

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.

The hypocrisy is maddening.

Compare it with Zuckerberg plugging his mic with a dud 3.5mm connector.

Some years ago I got glad and impressed by a friend landing a job as a SWE at Google. Nowadays I just feel pity and disgust for him working there.

I would write "how times change" but the thing is I just hadn't realized how bad Google was 5 years ago.

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