211–220 of 409 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
More likely that Microsoft learned a very good lesson from their 1990s encounter with the DOJ, but it wasn't the hoped for "stop doing illegal and unethical things" but instead "make more and better targeted political contributions."
and share data with 3 letter agencies
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read a story yesterday[1] how the policy inside Google is to cc their legal department on any emails that you think could make the company look bad in any future legal proceedings. As I understand it, this shields the email from discovery. Did you have similar guidelines inside Microsoft? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30760923
> As I understand it, this shields the email from discovery. LOL that's NOT how discovery works
This is from the DOJ's brief:
> Plaintiffs respectfully request the Court to sanction Google LLC (Google) for its extensive and intentional efforts to misuse the attorney-client privilege to hide business documents relevant to this case. Google has explicitly and repeatedly instructed its employees to shield important business communications from discovery by using false requests for legal advice. These efforts directly harmed Plaintiffs, undermined their discovery efforts, and subverted the judicial process. The Court should sanction Google and order the full production of withheld and redacted emails where in-house counsel was included in a communication between non-attorneys and did not respond. Alternatively, the Court should hold these silent-attorney emails are not privileged and immediately order their production.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect things may have improved in Russia since then, there is plenty of screwed up stuff but in my adult life I (and as far as I know my friends) had never been forced to bribe someone to accomplish something (passport, driving license, etc.), much less routinely do so. But then I was a small self-employed fish, and in fact due to my expectation of bribery I chose not to execute any business ideas in Russia. (Whi…
It might also depend on where in Russia specifically. Moscow and Saint Petersburg are its own thing pretty much, so I can totally believe that things have improved there. But imo the further away you go from those two largest cities and the smaller the population is, the worse it would get. I lived in a city of about half a million people about 800 miles east of Moscow (still in the European part of it though, not pa…
Perhaps that is why that foul regime enjoys popular support: people see is it not so awful anymore, but to consider it could have been even better is not acceptable.
Former Microsoftie here. After all the business ethics training videos I had to sit through, I am infuriated by this.
Implication: they can fire that employee and continue to give bribes.
Ps. Full disclosure, I never witnessed anybody giving bribes, nor worked with anyone who would be in a position to do so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it helps, I had to sit through all that stuff at Amazon as well. I was in the bit that makes consumer electronics and never dealt with contracts in any way, yet still had to spend time learning not to make or take bribes from wholesalers or international businesses or governments. Every. Single. Year. Initially the training software was badly written so you could just open up DevTools and type "v = document.queryS…
Yea, those simple times have passed. Ours require clicks at various points ("Next" and testing questions at the end of sections), so i accumulate them until there are 4-5 of such mandatory crap due and do them simultaneously. I suppose in time they will catch onto that too, and you'd be able to run only one at a time.
I can relate to this. Seems to be an industry-wide phenomenon. It probably explains what's going on with the world.
Former Microsoftie here. After all the business ethics training videos I had to sit through, I am infuriated by this.
If a government organization would want to use a Linux, how hard would it actually be? Is it a viable alternative?
Didn't Germany at one point, try to do this? I'm not sure if they still are using Linux. Also certain Chinese agencies are most definitely using custom distros.
And the Microsoft came calling again - guess what they use now?
It is the example I used to tell clients about how if your organization is big enough, publicly visible enough and open to being in the news/or a case study) and has great lawyers, you can probably get Microsoft licensing for essentially "free".
And those "nearly free" licenses will increase over the next 2-5 years.
The cynic in me says that Germany did this to get better bargaining leverage with Microsoft...
(Apparently they are cycling around back again, over the last couple years trying to transition away from Microsoft for some states/groups/municipalities within Germany)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As I understand it, this shields the email from discovery. LOL that's NOT how discovery works
Well, it's the theory Google was operating under. This is from the DOJ's brief: > Plaintiffs respectfully request the Court to sanction Google LLC (Google) for its extensive and intentional efforts to misuse the attorney-client privilege to hide business documents relevant to this case. Google has explicitly and repeatedly instructed its employees to shield important business communications from discovery by using fa…