Would MicroSoft Teams meetings (including 1:1 private calls between individual employees) be converted from Voice to Text and stored? Could those turn up in FOI's or SEC requests one day, or even just be viewed by higher-ups at the company with access? I'd guess what's said in 1 on 1 calls could be quite sensitive
Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
121–130 of 402 posts
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#122At Google in 2006, the SVP of Engineering was presenting to the entire engineering org during an all hands meeting. A question came up as regards retaining emails related to a pending lawsuit. He told everybody: "Do NOT delete any emails. . Let me say that again to make sure everyone has understood me correctly: do NOT delete any emails!" The way it was said, the chuckle, and the way it was repeated with the extra em…
Where are you getting this from? Is this from the complaint? Or a personal anecdote? I worked there in 2006. The SVP of Eng was Alan Eustace. He's a jolly guy, he chuckles a lot. I don't remember this specific exchange but I can hear his chuckle in my head. Knowing him, the chuckle would almost certainly be laughing at what an obviously terrible idea it would be to delete the emails. Alan Eustace certainly would not…
Yeah that would be a ridiculous take. He is clearly laughing at the enormous pain that attempts to delete emails would cause.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#123I moved from an HFT firm to Google. The attitude difference with respect to document holds was hilarious. At the HFT firm, the attitude was, "we're constantly being sued (by the SEC and others), so we treat all of our records like they're under litigation holds, just in case the SEC claims they wanted them, even the off-topic slack channels." At Google, the attitude was, "we're constantly getting sued, so we treat al…
Yeah, FAANG gang has no idea the level of surveillance and record keeping that bank/fund/wall st tech is under. I worked at one shop that if you said "call my cell" in a slack to someone, you'd get a call from compliance within days ask to explain why you did this, what the conversation was about, why it wasn't on a work phone.. and to never, ever, ever do it again... because you know we are watching, so we will find…
And it wouldn't take too many law changes to put FAANG under similar scrutiny.
Seems like it might be time.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#124so much for DO NO EVIL good guys.
I distinctly remember conversations with my very down-to-earth & practical tech friends in SV. they all were totally bought into the notion that google can do nothing wrong .. because conscientious engineers & management. I kept telling them all it takes is a few bad quarters & all that goes out the window. of course people looked at me like am a cynic & out of touch.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#125I moved from an HFT firm to Google. The attitude difference with respect to document holds was hilarious. At the HFT firm, the attitude was, "we're constantly being sued (by the SEC and others), so we treat all of our records like they're under litigation holds, just in case the SEC claims they wanted them, even the off-topic slack channels." At Google, the attitude was, "we're constantly getting sued, so we treat al…
Google operates exactly like a criminal organization would. It's that simple, and we should talk about it in that way, because that is what it is. A huge portion of their business is effectively racketeering, and we should be putting Larry, Sergey, and Sundar in prison. RICO provides some tools to effectively bring in the heads of the organization based on the actions of people under their employ. "Nice website you g…
"Wow, that would suck for me. Guess I'll be telling my customers to find me on Bing. Not to mention supporting the trade and industry organizations that will be putting the message out, via ad campaigns, that Bing is the better option."
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a great example for nefarious off the records communication & coordination, as it wasn't required for this to occur. CDO credit ratings were a perverse incentive race to the bottom in terms of quality, because it was issuer-paid. The ratings agencies essentially bid on future business with the banks by issuing rosier ratings than their competitors. Also, they paid billions in fine settlements after the fact. The…
> CDO credit ratings were a perverse incentive race to the bottom in terms of quality, because it was issuer-paid. Yet this remains unchanged.
Right, still stupid to be issuer paid, but there's also not a lot of great alternatives I suppose.
Ideally it would be buyer paid, but then you have a chicken&egg problem that buyers don't want to pay for ratings on securities they don't buy, and they don't know which to buy if they aren't rated yet.
Security purchasers were obviously doing insufficient due diligence & research on products, taking ratings at face value.
It's like if you saw CNBC mention some upgrade of Rivian to a "buy rating" by Goldman, and said "OK then I am buying it", without doing any research.
Anyway, some structure was put in place by the government settlements. For example in Moodys government they agreed to:
* Separation of Moody’s commercial and credit rating functions by excluding analytical personnel from any commercial related discussions and excluding personnel responsible for commercial functions from determining credit ratings or developing rating methodologies;
* Changes to ensure that specified personnel are not compensated on the basis of the company’s financial performance;
and a few other things
The separation of concerns seems similar to the Dotcom implosion era settlements to how equity research could be paid, and that they had to be firewalls off from the parts of the bank bidding on equity/debt/loan offerings with the companies that research reports were being written on.
Probably the biggest outcome was that the market now understood credit rating agencies are barely worth the bytes they are recorded in, and they are taken with large grains of salt now.
So far from perfect, but also far from the narrative of "nothing changed".. like much in life.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#127I moved from an HFT firm to Google. The attitude difference with respect to document holds was hilarious. At the HFT firm, the attitude was, "we're constantly being sued (by the SEC and others), so we treat all of our records like they're under litigation holds, just in case the SEC claims they wanted them, even the off-topic slack channels." At Google, the attitude was, "we're constantly getting sued, so we treat al…
Google operates exactly like a criminal organization would. It's that simple, and we should talk about it in that way, because that is what it is. A huge portion of their business is effectively racketeering, and we should be putting Larry, Sergey, and Sundar in prison. RICO provides some tools to effectively bring in the heads of the organization based on the actions of people under their employ. "Nice website you g…
if you think thats criminal, you should look up what they do with android anti fragmentation agreement.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, FAANG gang has no idea the level of surveillance and record keeping that bank/fund/wall st tech is under. I worked at one shop that if you said "call my cell" in a slack to someone, you'd get a call from compliance within days ask to explain why you did this, what the conversation was about, why it wasn't on a work phone.. and to never, ever, ever do it again... because you know we are watching, so we will find…
Wondering which official phone was used to get AAA ratings for the crap synthetic CDOs during 08 crisis.
I guess smoke signals, semaphores, hand gestures, and communicating via silly walks is not covered by the SEC. Also, white handkerchief out at 9 am means meet me at the pub tonight?
Only half-joking. I really wish I knew how this works.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#129Not sure if it matters, but all chats at Google default to history off (deleted after 24hrs). Turning on history only keeps messages for 30days and you have to do this for every single group chat, private chat, etc. There is no archive or long held messages like Slack.
Yes, these settings were chosen specifically to destroy evidence, and the courts are increasingly unhappy with that. All conversations involving people on legal holds (such as the CEO!) should be retained indefinitely.
Re: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]
#130None of this is particularly surprising, but it's very amusing to see the litigation go this route. It's incredible common for corporate legal to recommend purging data or communications no longer relevant, or to advise avoiding specific means of communication (like email) due to retention challenges. It's incredibly dumb to explicitly discuss avoiding leading a paper trail with respect to subjects where litigation i…
On a tangential but somewhat intertwined note: Australia has recently had multiple data breaches across a number of large groups that saw decades of user data copied .. that should have been PURGED . Some of it arguably should never have been retained - proof of identity data, addresses, passport numbers, etc. Obviously this isn't the same as internal emails, chat histories, etc but I'm hoping we here in Australia se…
If you have a policy or procedure, what you’re suggesting is ok in most companies.
There’s no law that says that you need to keep security camera footage for any length of time. If your practice to to retain for 7 days, and you get a subpoena to provide it 10 days later, no problem. But if you are directed to retain footage from February 30th, or have a reasonable foreknowledge that you should keep the footage, you’re in trouble.
The answers vary by company. If you sue or investigate people all of the time, you want to keep everything forever. If you get sued frequently, you want to get rid of the data as soon as practical. If you consciously don’t create records for matters that aren’t confidential, people are probably going to infer something.