I don't understand why you're comparing to phone calls here when the post you're replying to starts with "Google Chat logs aren't direct p2p, they are most defi

I don't understand why you're comparing to phone calls here when the post you're replying to starts with "Google Chat logs aren't direct p2p, they are most definitely logged records. Otherwise the messages wouldn't still be there when you log out and back in." which is simply not true for voice calls, which are synchronous. Chats are asynchronous and store history in the client so you can scroll back (even if history is eventually purged client side on a timer or when you exit), and if chat history is enabled on the server, they store it there too. A better point of comparison would be voicemails, but I don't think we're talking about those.