Judge mulls sanctions over Google's destruction of internal chats

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/judge-mulls-sanctions-over-googles-shocking-destruction-of-internal-chats/

by botanical • 2 years ago

227 238 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

_lvbh• 2 years ago

The subtitle is really weird:

Punishing Google for being the best would be “unprecedented,” lawyer argued.

How does deleting evidence make you “the best”?

Also, obstruction of justice charges aren’t exactly unprecedented. We need obstruction of justice to be harsher than the crime itself to discourage blatant hiding of evidence

tivert• 2 years ago

How does deleting evidence make you “the best”?

Google is full of really clever people who know how clever they are. The government should just give up now and Google should just win by default.

77pt77• 2 years ago

If the government wanted the entirety of google would be Boeinged tomorrow.

The reverse is not true.

There's power in information, but physical power trumps that.

twic• 2 years ago

In fact, Google should prosecute the US government.

fbdab103• 2 years ago

If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.

nl3• 2 years ago

It's weird writing in the article to include that.

In the article this comes from a completely different argument in a completely different point against a MS argument that Google has violated the Sherman act in the same way MS did.

The quote is from Google attorney who pointed out that all the companies that had signed exclusive deals with Google had testified that they chose Google because it was the best.

It doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the chat history argument.

ceroxylon2• 2 years ago

I felt the same way, it is almost as if they have a blog-generating AI prompt that says something along the lines of "make the subheading a provocative counterpoint".

anothername12• 2 years ago

Is there a technical name for the two tiered legal system we have here? The average jack off is never going to get away with destroying evidence, yet the rich, and corporations are given deference all the time for all sorts of shit.

SOVIETIC-BOSS88• 2 years ago

A double standard. Sadly present in most communities since the dawn of humanity.

cess11• 2 years ago

Are you sure about that?

mcmoor• 2 years ago

I've heard the idiom of "knive policy", sharp at the bottom, dull at the top.

nl3• 2 years ago

I think most people can turn off their chat history too? And indeed having a policy of always turning your chat history off for sensitive conversations is unlikely to be sanctioned unlike in this case.

(Google didn't destroy chat logs, they just had history off for them)

dwaite3• 2 years ago

You may find the judge isn't willing to entertain a game of semantics.

My understanding is it is as simple as the following: Google was ordered to retain information, and afterward specifically changed their policies such that the information would not be retained, and also misled the court that the information was being properly retained.

ameister1413• 2 years ago

(Google didn't destroy chat logs, they just had history off for them)

This is a weird argument I'm seeing a lot. Isn't this just a variable trigger for deletion? What is the functional difference in the code, I mean?

Using a really, really simple example: If this were stored in a table, I could make a front end button say delete and call that back to the back-end to push the command to delete the cell/row/whatever; I could also set a timer on that with an if/then statement using date of creation and current date and remove the front-end functionality, or have some front-end trigger to turn on the loop to count down the whatever time period, 30 days say.

The end result is the same; the command being sent is [delete], not [don't save this]. I guess without the command the default would be that the data was wiped when the power to the machine went out like with a TI-99, is that what you are thinking of?

Sakos2• 2 years ago

You have people here defending Google. So, apparently the average jack off is okay with a two tiered system.

juped2• 2 years ago

Learn to use the phone when you want an undiscoverable chat, like everyone else on the planet.

rl3• 2 years ago

Technically that's discoverable, too. Just needs to be a national security matter.

ARandomerDude2• 2 years ago

Sadly we live in an era in which mass wiretapping, automated transcription and flagging, and parallel construction are not unreasonable concerns.

varjag• 2 years ago

Wiretapping google executives is two orders of legal magnitude more difficult than sending the company a discovery order.

ceroxylon2• 2 years ago

As long as you're not a target:

https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChTelRTP.ht...

https://www.cs.unc.edu/~fabian/papers/foniks-oak11.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping

fsckboy• 2 years ago

The allegation in the article is not that google destroyed internal chats, but rather had instructed staff to turn off the chat saving feature before having such chats. Just as inculpatory, but not the same thing:

"Google was accused of enacting a policy instructing employees to turn chat history off by default when discussing sensitive topics, including Google's revenue-sharing and mobile application distribution agreements. These agreements, the DOJ and state attorneys general argued, work to maintain Google's monopoly over search."

Punishing Google for being the best would be “unprecedented,” lawyer argued.

the article doesn't seem to cover this subhead, but I'm guessing this is a reference not to failing to keep records of their anti-competitive practices, but to something along the lines of "google only seems like a monopoly because they're such a good competitor they wind up with all the customers"

jellicle• 2 years ago

That's not correct. The allegation in the article is that Google was under a legal obligation to preserve the chats, and that Google repeatedly told the government it was saving internal chats while repeatedly destroying them.

edarchis• 2 years ago

They didn't ask employees to destroy evidence but to avoid retaining evidence in the first place. Not leaving sensitive information in logs, backups etc is quite reasonable, even if it would have been useful to justice here.

colechristensen2• 2 years ago

Regulated industries just require saving of communications. It seems like maybe that should be the standard.

ceinewydd• 2 years ago

Do you think that should extend to recording some or all meetings at a company?

A group of executives meets. Should that meeting be recorded, even if it’s not a “hybrid” meeting and entirely happened in person?

A group of engineers meets. How about that one?

This seems like a hard issue. If the court creates a precedent here, I expect any sensitive discussions that might have any sort of future liability will just go back to verbal conversations (if allowed), and then aren’t we back to where we are today, with no record?

dragonwriter6• 2 years ago

Regulated industries just require saving of communications

This isn't a regulated industries issue: all parties to actual or reasonably anticipated litigation are required to preserve evidence.

fyrn_2• 2 years ago

Under 18 U.S.C. § 151 "Concealment" is obstruction of justice, and almost certainly illegal in this case. There is a wide body of legal precedent on the topic, for example moving an email to the trash does not count, but "delete forever" (called "double delete" in the opinion) does. Have your chat setup to autodelete does not get you out of that. Especially when they have well documented how they only instructed to do that for legally sensitve topics.

radium3d• 2 years ago

That's interesting, but how is that any different at all from discussing a topic in person in which it is immediately discarded so long as it is not recorded? Seems identical and it should not be considered concealment in any way, even if it's for "sensitive" meetings, as they could have just as easily been done in person verbally with no recordings. This really feels like authorities overstepping because they want to know things they weren't meant to know and are just personally offended.

oatmeal1• 2 years ago

They didn't ask employees to destroy evidence but to avoid retaining evidence in the first place.

It certainly sounds like destruction. The words are written, then the words are encoded as text, stored, and sent, and then at the end, discarded.

nl3• 2 years ago

If the chat is E2E encrypted this isn't really the case. There is no storage.

EMIRELADERO2• 2 years ago

This comment[1] provides a good explanation on why this analogy is absurd:

Chats at google by default have 24 hours of chat history. (That is, after 24 hours, the chat history is delelted.) You can opt in to having 30 days of chat history instead. And when under a legal hold, Google continues to delete chats in the 24 hour history mode, but will not delete chats in the 30 day history mode.
That is, Google's theory here seems to be that if you have a policy to destroy certain letters and memos 24 hours after receiving or creating them, then you don't need to stop doing that and preserve them even if under a court ordered legal hold. But if your policy is to destroy certain documents 30 days after creating them, then you must stop deleting them and retain them if ordered by a court.
Which is....a.....theory!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35587100

_huayra_2• 2 years ago

I haven't worked at Google, so maybe there are better channels than "chat that's holding everything together", but I can't imagine that being unable to search a chat and look at who said what and when is useful. I use it all the time to look up some random useful command a coworker told me long ago that I neglected to write down, for instance, or to follow up with a long-stale thread to revive it.

I suppose that's what email and design docs are for, but I feel a lot of that "organizational glue" in chat is quite valuable. How do Googlers live without it?

ars• 2 years ago

Presumably it would be better if it was a phone call? Does a legal hold require recording all calls?

> Which is....a.....theory!

I guess their theory is these ephemeral chats are like phone calls, as opposed to written communication.

ruined• 2 years ago

no.

they were under legal obligation to retain that evidence, and were lying in court and claiming that they were retaining that evidence.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223...

All this time, Google falsely told the United States that Google had "put a legal hold in place" that "suspends auto-deletion." Indeed, during the United States' investigation and the discovery phase of this litigation, Google repeatedly misrepresented its document preservation policies, which conveyed the false impression that the company was preserving all custodial chats. Not only did Google unequivocally assert during the investigation that its legal hold suspended auto-deletion, but Google continually failed to disclose—both to the United States and to the Court—its 24-hour auto-deletion policy. Instead, at every turn, Google reaffirmed that it was preserving and searching all potentially relevant written communications.

pylua• 2 years ago

A legal hold is very serious and I can’t believe they would be so negligent or untruthful. This is a very bad look.

cogman104• 2 years ago

Bingo.

What Google did here is sanctionable. It's not something the courts tend to look favorably on and could ultimately end up getting a default judgement.

And this isn't the first case of Google burying evidence to try and complicate legal proceedings. They had, for example, the policy of "any email with sensitive stuff should cc legal" policy to try and shield potential criminal behavior with attorney client privilege.

1vuio0pswjnm73• 2 years ago

"They didn't ask employees to destroy evidence but to avoid retaining evidence in the first place."

Once a company knows its going to be sued it has a legal obligation under federal rules to preserve evidence. Google deliberately ignored that requirement.

Nice try.

codedokode5• 2 years ago

Maybe they are required to preserve existing documents, but not required to create new evidence against themselves.

busterarm2• 2 years ago

Stringer Bell said it best: "is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?"

p3rls• 2 years ago

Google always had more of stanfield vibes to me.

dragonwriter6• 2 years ago

They didn't ask employees to destroy evidence but to avoid retaining evidence in the first place.

Once evidence exists, not retaining it involves deleting it. So you’ve simply rephrased what they are accused of and framed it as if that is a denial.

Which, you know, is kind of all there is to spin with when there are no favorable facts, but why spin for Google?

pyrale3• 2 years ago

Not leaving sensitive information in logs, backups etc is quite reasonable

We have evidence that Google execs instructed their relations to turn off chat specifically to avoid future discovery [1]. Excerpt from this document :

In one Chat, Mr. Pichai began discussing a substantive topic, and then immediately wrote: “also can we change the setting of this group to history off.”1 Then, nine seconds later, Mr. Pichai apparently attempted (unsuccessfully) to delete this incriminating message.

[1] https://ia601707.us.archive.org/28/items/gov.uscourts.cand.3...

nullc3• 2 years ago

Being able to privately discuss matters is apparently a freedom only afforded to personalities that are comfortable speaking voice in real-time.

The same policy but in the form of "discuss these things over the phone" would not just be unremarkable, it's the norm.

The failure to extend the same treatment to unlogged text chats is discriminatory to people with disabilities and different personalities. ... and it's at odd with the underlying principle that when you know you're subject to litigation you're required to retain records you created but you're not obligated to create new records.

oceanplexian• 2 years ago

You don’t have that right when you’re under criminal investigation. It doesn’t matter if it’s a phone call, the government will get a warrant to wiretap you legally and then use the evidence in court to prosecute you.

nullc3• 2 years ago

This is civil litigation, not criminal. This is also not related to a wiretap.

And even if it had been to have no obligation to _create_ records even then.

Google's policy is isomorphic to "don't discuss these legally sensitive matters except via the phone" and the DOJ wants sanctions because no one took and retained notes from the calls.

Except keeping those conversations on the telephone and not taking notes is unambiguously legal and a common practice... In google's case "phone" is replaced with unlogged chat.

The differential treatment is discriminatory. The ephemeral chat serves an identical purpose to a phone call, but is compatible with people with different communications needs.

One need not assume bad faith for wanting to have discussions off the record: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." casual comments, jokes, confusion, or exploration taken out of context can be easily misconstrued. Just the cost of having to review more potentially relevant material in discovery can be devastating.

People also cannot come to understand their legal obligations unless they're free to discuss them without fear that any little misstatement or bad phrasing will turn around and burn them-- and these discussions don't happen exclusively with lawyers in the room as behaving legally and ethically is everyone's responsibility (in spite of what lawyers in their effort for full employment sometimes want you to believe!).

dcchambers• 2 years ago

ELI5: why is there any expectation for corporations to keep chat logs or emails long term? Is there some legal requirement I don't understand?

ARandomerDude2• 2 years ago

Read the article

derwiki• 2 years ago

I just read the article and it doesn’t directly answer the question.

Why would you be allowed to have unrecorded conversations in the office? Doesn’t that show the same intent?

graton2• 2 years ago

Google records chat by default. But it appears they had a policy if they were going to discuss something that could look bad if subpoenaed that chat recording should be turned off before discussing it.

cornel_io5• 2 years ago

Right, but I'm not clear, is that actually illegal? I've seen similar policies at many companies.

tylerhou• 2 years ago

No, this is not true. By default, starting a private chat with another employee defaulted to “history off” (as far as I can remember; I left Google >1 year ago now).

juped2• 2 years ago

When you're in or reasonably expect to be in litigation, you have an obligation to preserve evidence for discovery.

nullc3• 2 years ago

You do not have an obligation to create records for that purpose, however, only to preserve what you do create.

Dudhbbh33432• 2 years ago

It's ridiculous that a private company can be forced to make private discussions available to be used against themselves.

JumpCrisscross5• 2 years ago

Sorry, did I commit fraud by discussing business over dinner without a stenographer present?

If you’re ordered to retain communications, sure. And in a civil court, it’s fair to conclude adversely if a party’s messages disappear suspiciously. But by the government? No.

smt883• 2 years ago

The argument being made is that Google execs switched over to Signal when they wanted to discuss the crimes they were committing.

They weren't always using Signal. They had many thousands of emails and other communications that were preserved and used as evidence.

cornel_io5• 2 years ago

I use Signal by default for every piece of communication that I can. Am I somehow held to a different standard just because I was paranoid about surveillance from the start?

That seems wrong.

dyauspitr2• 2 years ago

So what? Everyone everywhere does that about sensitive stuff. How many times have you heard- call me about it I don’t want to put it in writing.

orangepanda• 2 years ago

Maybe the execs got tired of having to install yet another messenger, when the previous one gets deprecated?

busterarm2• 2 years ago

Wouldn't be surprised. One startup I worked at launched their entire own separate private chat app/company and all of the execs and early employees used exclusively that software to communicate with each other, rather than email or the company slack.

JumpCrisscross5• 2 years ago

Fair enough. The bar for intent should be high, though.

I use FaceTime Audio frequently for calls. Once I was asked to testify in respect of an investment fraud I prompted my firm to report. I got grilled for not being able to provide complete call logs. My concern is criminalising incomplete records creates the precedent of requiring them at all times.

codedokode5• 2 years ago

So you want to say that everyone (including individuals) should keep all their communications saved so that it will be easier to prosecute them?

dragonwriter6• 2 years ago

If you’re ordered to retain communications, sure. And in a civil court, it’s fair to conclude adversely if a party’s messages disappear suspiciously.

This is civil court.

petesergeant• 2 years ago

Certainly in the UK there are personal implications for both employees and company directors when breaking certain laws — I have in mind the Bribery Act 2010, which takes an absolutely scorched earth approach to bribery.

Hard to see a reason not to apply that to discoverable communications of public companies too.

Dudhbbh33432• 2 years ago

Hard to see a reason not to apply that to discoverable communications of public companies too.

Maybe we don't want to live in a (self-imposed) surveillance state?

yard20104• 2 years ago

You end up living in one anyway.

hindsightbias• 2 years ago

my corp encourages using slack and said they’re going to purge stuff a couple years old.

I guess we’re entering an era of come at us, fed bros. Iron Mountain is… empty.

dwaite3• 2 years ago

Is your corp under court order to preserve written communications? That may be an important difference between them and Google.

ken472• 2 years ago

To those arguing about the semantics of deletion vs. never having saved it in the first place, do you believe the DOJ would make this claim without having considered such trivialities?

cornel_io5• 2 years ago

Yes. The DOJ sometimes (if not often) overreaches because they are taking a shot. These sorts of cases are often attempts to establish precedent that they can use to go after others under similar theories.

Flipping this around, do you think Google's legal team, which is probably equally qualified and vastly more well paid (and with a lot more to lose if they're wrong), would advise employees to do this if they hadn't considered such trivialities?

ken472• 2 years ago

do you think Google's legal team, which is probably equally qualified and vastly more well paid (and with a lot more to lose if they're wrong), would advise employees to do this if they hadn't considered such trivialities?

Depends on what their risk-reward appetite is. Competent people will make surprising decisions under pressure.

pyrale3• 2 years ago

do you think Google's legal team, which is probably equally qualified and vastly more well paid (and with a lot more to lose if they're wrong), would advise employees to do this if they hadn't considered such trivialities?

Well, I would expect Google's legal time to advise employees not to do anything illegal, yet here we are.

ameister1413• 2 years ago

These sorts of cases are often attempts to establish precedent that they can use to go after others under similar theories.

There is already a lot of precedent around policies related to spoliation which is why it would be a surprise to me if Google's legal team actually did advise employees to do this as a blanket policy. It seems more likely that they said they could do it for things that are not potentially relevant to litigation and the execs took it as far as they wanted to go.

px432• 2 years ago

The DOJ will make whatever claim they feel like to extend their surveillance apparatus as far and wide as possible.

lazide• 2 years ago

DOJ is a political organization - of course they will selectively prosecute and weigh risks based off intended political impacts.

ETH_start7• 2 years ago

The state ought to have no legal right to compel people to keep records of their private communications.

pjc503• 2 years ago

It's a publicly listed company, not a "person".

ETH_start7• 2 years ago

The company is a contractual arrangement between people, and thus any restrictions on it is a restriction on the rights of the people who own it, i.e. the shareholders.

Being publicly traded only means that a centralized regulatory gatekeeper lifted the prohibition on people trading its securitized equity. This is a right that all companies should have by default, and not a state of affairs that should impose special restrictions on the company.

yard20104• 2 years ago

People, sure. State-like corporations - hell not

ETH_start7• 2 years ago

Corporations are property of people. They are legal structures through which their shareholders act.

mjburgess• 2 years ago

Critical information which commenters here are missing:

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 custodians, if any, manually changed, on a chat-by-chat basis, the history default from off to on. This means that for nearly four years, Google systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours.

magicalist• 2 years ago

You should note you're quoting the DOJ's argument, not a finding of fact. Google seems to be arguing that chats are different than other documents (informal and ephemeral, I guess?) and default auto-delete is reasonable for them.

Deciding that (and if it's worth sanctions if Google is wrong) is literally what's being asked of the judge.

bragr• 2 years ago

You're correct that the judge hasn't ruled yet. However, not very many people, lawyers or otherwise, seem to be buying what Google is selling here. These kinds of chats are routine in discovery and disappearing messages like on Signal have regularly gotten people in trouble with the courts. Google's argument seems to boil down to they are special because reasons? And if they were so certain it was permissible, they'd still be doing it.

BeetleB• 2 years ago

Google seems to be arguing that chats are different than other documents (informal and ephemeral, I guess?) and default auto-delete is reasonable for them.

My company has a default auto-delete for our email Inbox. Yet, we have all been trained to retain the emails (by moving them to a folder) if notified of a relevant legal event. I don't know if in practice I have to manually save them or whether IT will just disable autodelete on my account. In any case, the message is clear: Autodelete is not permissible under such circumstances.

Sorry Google. Nice try.

mbrumlow3• 2 years ago

This is the problem with the digital world.

To me, a slack message or chat message is the digital equivalent to me going to your desk or talking to you at lunch in person.

Now we live in a digital world where because we can, we are now being told to record. How would this be any different than the courts demanding that all conversations be recorded via audio recording when not using a chat application.

I think the fair trade off is “if i have the document, then I will produce it” and a default policy of delete after x time would be tested no different than if you or I had a conversation in person.

1vuio0pswjnm73• 2 years ago

"You should note you're quoting the DOJ's argument, not a finding of fact."

Why? The facts quoted in the parent comment, namely that Google destroyed _potential_ evidence, are not in dispute. Google has never denied that it destroyed chats after anticipating litigation in 2019. Because, surprise, that's what it did. In violation of the federal rules, Google destroyed chats that should have been preserved for potential discovery. This is not a DOJ argument. It is a fact. DOJ may use this fact in its arguments.

We can verfiy this by looking at Google's latest response. If the parent comment's quote was a "DOJ argument" then Google should be countering it by denying it destroyed potential evidence. That is not what Google argues.

Google is arguing (a) the destruction was not an _intentional_ attempt to conceal information from the DOJ and (b) the information destroyed did not contain any _relevent_ evidence.^1

Of course it's impossible to resolve the issue presented by (b) because the information has been destroyed. Google is essentially saying, "Trust us, there wasn't anything relevant in those chats." The DOJ cannot "prove" the chats contained relevant evidence because it cannot see the chats; Google destroyed them.

Does this situation created by _Google destroying the chats_ play in Google's favour? What do readers think?

1. These quotes come from Google's latest response.^2 Italics added are mine.

"356. Plaintiffs seek to rewrite history in their contention that Google's long-time chats retention practices-of which they were on notice since the beginning of this litigation- evidence the purposeful "destruction" of evidence. DOJ Br. at 75-79. And, recycling arguments from their unsuccessful sanctions motion filed in Spring 2022 (see May 12, 2022, Minute Order), Plaintiffs spin instructions to Google employees to use care in their written communications into supposed "concealment" of evidence. DOJ Br. at 75-79. There is no basis, in fact or law, to impose sanctions on Google. Each of the Google witnesses who was questioned on these matters at trial confirmed that there was no intentional destruction of evidence, and no evidence was presented that could support the conclusion that Google concealed or destroyed relevant evidence with the intention of gaining some advantage in the litigation. Google has produced millions of documents, including all manner of formal business documents as well as more informal communications such as email, and there is no reason to believe that the record before the Court is anything less than complete."

"358. Far from supporting Plaintiffs' motion for sanctions related to Google's Chat retention policies, the trial testimony confirmed that the motion is without merit. In particular, there is no reason to believe that history-off chats created after notice of the DOJ investigation in 2019 and not otherwise preserved and produced contained material information of any significance to resolving Plaintiffs' claims. Nor is there any evidence that there was any intentional effort by Google to deprive Plaintiffs of the use of information in this litigation; after all, Google disclosed to Plaintiffs the very approach to chats preservation that they now challenge long before Plaintiffs filed their original motion. See ECF No. 529 at 7-17; ECF No. 576-1 at 1-2.16

359. Plaintiffs' proposed findings obfuscate these facts, and are designed to suggest- without supportive evidence, let alone actual proof-that some relevant information was lost."

2. https://ia802501.us.archive.org/21/items/gov.uscourts.dcd.22...

hulitu2• 2 years ago

Google seems to be arguing that chats are different than other documents (informal and ephemeral, I guess?) and default auto-delete is reasonable for them.

Yes but only if they are their chats. Your chats are still used for your profiling.

In some countries, disregarding laws is a fellony.

dragonwriter6• 2 years ago

Note that Google was sanctioned last year for similar conducted in the anti-trust litigation over the Play Store as they are now facing sanctions over in the anti-trust litigation over adtech.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/03/28/judge-sanctions-google-for...

Sai_• 2 years ago

Send Pichai to jail for a week and watch the CEOs of the biggest companies fall over themselves to comply with court instructions.

rasz• 2 years ago

Dont count on it, recent example of a Judge mulling sanctions after blatant disregard of Court order and multiple counts of contempt was 9x $1000 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-nyc-hush-money-trial-... Courts work in different mode when dealing with the rich.

somenameforme• 2 years ago

Violating a judge's gag order is, at most, contempt of court which has a max penalty of 30 days confinement and a $1000 fine. Pichai is flirting with destruction of evidence, which is a criminal felony with consequences of up to 20 years in prison. If he were a "normal person", he'd likely be facing this exact charge right now.

schrectacular• 2 years ago

Why the CEO instead of the board?

TheCoelacanth• 2 years ago

Why not both?

datavirtue• 2 years ago

Most of the companies I have run across have some type of ephemeral chat history policy to limit potential legal peril. I always found that to be shady.

datadrivenangel• 2 years ago

It's a matter of convenience and cost.

If you get sued and have to turn every email and chat message over for discovery, that's a lot of information to review to make sure you don't miss anything or share too much. Much easier if you delete everything after 90 days

dennis_jeeves22• 2 years ago

The way to fairly attempt ending a monopoly is not by quelling the power of the monopoly but by removing hurdles for new businesses to start. Then again a monopoly is not always bad if they provide the best product/service.

Somebody many years ago mentioned on HN that a startup wanted to start a bank. After several years of dealing with the bureaucracy for approval they gave up.

willj• 2 years ago

I think this ignores that the monopolies have the power to buy up any new competitors, or to drive them out of business using monopoly power. Regulatory hurdles are only one tool that (can) benefit monopolies.

yathaid• 2 years ago

This is such a laughably naive view. The documents in court __show__ that even microsoft could not move Google out of Apple's defaults. But sure, "removing hurdles for new businesses to start" will obviously solve this.

dennis_jeeves22• 2 years ago

So hire a thug to kill another thug, what could go wrong?

codedokode5• 2 years ago

What Google does makes sense. If I were running a company I would also prefer to auto-delete internal communications not to leave any traces. It is stupid to collect data that will be used against you. It actually surprises me that there are companies who preserve evidence against them even when not required by law.

And by the way, Telegram chats can auto-delete messages.

echoangle• 2 years ago

The problem is that they might have been required by law to keep the data

codedokode5• 2 years ago

If "keep the data" means "keep exsiting data" then disabling logging for new conversations seems ok.

the DOJ believed the court should "conclude that communicating with history off shows anti-competitive intent to hide information because they knew they were violating antitrust law."

This is too arbitrary. It is like saying that everyone who uses secret chats and auto-deleted photos in Telegram is a criminal trying to hide the evidence.

GauntletWizard• 2 years ago

It's stupid that these communications are such a liability. Most corporations make the same comments, but so long as they're over video chat or telephone they're inadmissible. The same over text is somehow admissable, and read without any context. It's like that old joke about a bad read in court - "Your honor, the witness said 'no, don't, stop'" "She didn't say it that way!"

klysm• 2 years ago

It’s amazing to me that it cannot be interpreted as obstruction of justice to say “don’t record illegal conversations”

JaceLightning• 2 years ago

Could you make the same argument about in person chats out loud?

If so, then they better record everything their employees say!

Log_out_• 2 years ago

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Judge mulls sanctions over Google's destruction of internal chats

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