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Justice Department says Google destroyed evidence related to antitrust lawsuit

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

#241

Post by dragonwriter »

pverghese wrote: post #159
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #3

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18552824/512/1/united-s... > The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure required Google to suspend its auto-delete practices in mid-2019, when the company reasonably anticipated this litigation. Google did not. Instead, as described above, Google abdicated its burden to individual custodians to preserve potentially relevant chats. Few, if any, document custodians did so. That is, few cu…

> The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure required Google to suspend its auto-delete practices in mid-2019, when the company reasonably anticipated this litigation. Google did not. How the hell is this a thing. I can understand if they did this post litigation being filed then it would be a problem. How is a company supposed to anticipate when and where the government is going to file charges and keep records for them w…

> How is a company supposed to anticipate when and where the government is going to file charges and keep records for them waiting.

It is not just the government, evidence preservations rules attach for any relevant documents at the point where litigation is either initiated, or is, or reasonably should be, anticipated, regardless of whether the government is a party to the regulation. In the specific case of government action, knowledge of existence and subject matter of a government investigation generally provides a basis on which litigation on the subject should be reasonably anticipated (ditto with, e.g., an explicit threat of litigation by a private party. This is well-established law.

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

#242

Post by dragonwriter »

etothepii wrote: post #12
Supermancho wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google did not. Instead, as described above, Google abdicated its burden to individual custodians to preserve potentially relevant chats. Google didn't do it, it was those other individuals who defied the court order. Uh huh.

If true even a one or two day prison sentence for 5 or 6 Googlers would make sure this never happened again. One assumes that if anyone had asked legal they would have been told they must switch off auto-delete. Lawyers aren't stupid they value their licence far more than their current job. I am highly doubtful there would be any written advice that said anything other than, if in doubt save.

> If true even a one or two day prison sentence for 5 or 6 Googlers would make sure this never happened again.

A default judgement in favor of the government on the underlying antitrust case would be far more effective, and is actually a potential (though extreme) remedy (requiring neither indictment, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or involvement of a jury) if willful failure to preserve evidence is found.

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

#243

Post by dragonwriter »

andromeduck wrote: post #166
wpietri wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies can't get rid of chat tools anymore than previous bureaucracies could stop using paper. Operating at current scale requires digital communication. If they tried to cut that off, they'd discover that things stopped working. Twitter gave us an example of that just this week: https://www.platformer.news/p/new-cracks-emerge-in-elon-musk...

People can just voice/video call and write memos.

Paper records like memos are subject to evidence preservation rules as well.

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

#244

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#245

Post by bbor »

narrator wrote: post #198
wmeredith wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rules for thee, but not for me" may actually be the oldest trick in the book. Google's hypocrisy here is disappointing, but not surprising in the least.

Given the blacklists of google leak[1], I am betting they don't want a congressional subpoena to find out the boatloads of ridiculously politicized censorship they do either. [1] https://www.zachvorhies.com/blacklists/

What do you think about the assertion that these blacklists are for ads?

From the linked internal discussion on the shooting: "changes to ad serving and changes to search ranking are done completely independently, and by different teams". Isn't it a good idea not to serve ads on sites that are discussing a recent national trauma? Or at the very least not really related to politics?

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

#246

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> This is regulatory and legal overreach.

No, its not.

> 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.

Yes, they have.

> 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.

No one proposes the digital equivalent, only that once a record is created (which online chats inherently do in the course of executing them), the record be preserved. Which, in the 1950s, is exactly the rule that applied to anything that a record was created of.

> But effectively, that’s what retention requirements for chat messages amount to.

No, its not.

> What is the principled policy argument (ignoring practicality) for requiring retention of chat messages, but not requiring every employee to wear a body camera that permanently records every work-related interaction they have IRL?

The principled policy argument is that once records are created, deleting them when the conditions for a litigation hold exists is destruction of things known to be evidence in current or anticipated litigation, and that allowing parties to selectively destroy evidence with knowledge and reasonable anticipation of litigation unreasobably obstructs the discovery of truth the the legal process.

Chats are in no way special with regard to this argument.

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

#247

Post by dragonwriter »

water-your-self wrote: post #101
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…

This isnt equivalent to wearing a body camera. Maybe a screen recorder would warrant that comparison. Direct messages are a form of written communication

> This isnt equivalent to wearing a body camera.

Rather, the requirement is not equivalent to a requirement to wear a body camera, but instead to a requirement that if you wear and have actively recording a body camera, you can’t destroy the recording if it is relevant to a subject of reasonably anticipated, or actually in progress, litigation.

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

#248

Post by ClumsyPilot »

tantalor wrote: post #36
jonas21 wrote: post #32

Is the DoJ's argument that if you anticipate being sued in the future, you're not allowed to use private messaging at all?

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 on the spot, I do not expect an accurate answer.

When you are writing, you have a chance to think through what you are saying. You should also be aware that these words could be read in 1 hour or in 1 day, and they still need to be understood correctly. You could be help accountable for the promises, whether legally, or informally by friends and family.

That's why the law recognizes the superiority of written versus verbal agreements.

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

#249

Post by ClumsyPilot »

avalys wrote: post #153
cldellow wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making everyone wear body cams: they weren't previously using body cams, you have to spend $ to buy them, the cams will capture me while using the washroom. Stopping the deletion of chats: an IT person has to toggle a setting. It feels pretty different to me! 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 t…

> 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 preserving slack messages?

It is not the problem of the justice system that your employer has decided to put Joe in a different state.

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

#250

Post by jollofricepeas »

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...

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