8 ms·

Pardon my ignorance, but why isn't Pichai allowed to have chat conversations that don't record history? Was there a case against Google already that bans this o

Pardon my ignorance, but why isn't Pichai allowed to have chat conversations that don't record history? Was there a case against Google already that bans this or something? And couldn't this just be circumvented by having an in-person meeting?

habitue 4y ago
The complaint details the reason it was not allowed in this case, though would be normally: the topics were subject to legal holds. > Like Mr. Pichai, other key Google employees, including those in leadership roles, routinely opted to move from history-on rooms to history-off Chats to hold sensitive conversations, even though they knew they were subject to legal holds. Indeed, they did so even when discussing topics they knew were covered by the litigation holds in order to avoid leaving a record that could be produced in litigation. As the examples below make clear, Google destroyed innumerable Chats with the intent to deprive Plaintiffs and other litigants of the use of these documents in litigation Note: that's the argument the plaintiff's lawyers are making, not the final word on the matter
- irjustin 4y ago
  Interesting, is there any documentation about the legal holds details?
  - cmilton 4y ago
    https://support.google.com/vault/answer/7664657?hl=en https://support.google.com/vault/answer/7664657?hl=en
    - irjustin 4y ago
      mmm i'm looking for the legal documentation/language that requires google to hold the data for this particular topic. because i'm in agreement with the grandparent comment that why is the topic subject to legal holds vs just having a meeting in person? Are in person meetings rquired to have a voice recorder present? it seems like a weird legal precedent.
      - karpierz 4y ago
        You aren't required to make recordings. But if you made a recording, then you can't slate it for deletion. By disabling history, they're setting it up so records are deleted after 24 hours, instead of kept indefinitely. In the court's eyes, it's analogous to writing notes to each other, only to burn them the next day.
        irjustin 4y ago
        > routinely opted to move from history-on rooms to history-off Chats to hold sensitive conversations The way this is worded there's no record, so there's no "slated for deletion"? I guess the question becomes, if it exists inside computer memory, is that legally equivalent to "writing down piece of paper" and thusly is considered destroying evidence? If I write something in disappearing ink (let's say it perfectly disappears), it's not destroying evidence? is it?
        cornstalks 4y ago
        There is a record. It exists for 24 hours. It’s not in just your local computer’s memory. It’s in the cloud, and you can see that history on any of your devices.
        irjustin 4y ago
        > It’s in the cloud, and you can see that history on any of your devices. For argument's sake, let's say it's not. It's a tunneled connection and all stops in between are only acting as relays. Is it still wiping it then if it only exists in memory and then gets garbage collected? is that destroying evidence?... maybe...?
        sebzim4500 4y ago
        I think that would probably be ok, same as if it was a phone call.
      - cmilton 4y ago
- c7DJTLrn 4y ago
  Thanks, I'm not familiar with what a legal hold is. Would they be obliged to take audio recordings or minutes of meetings due to this?
  - rawgabbit 4y ago
    Not a lawyer. When a legal hold is issued, the company is instructed not to destroy potential evidence related to the case. They don’t have to perform additional recordings and minutes. But they exist, they can’t destroy it.
    - glerk 4y ago
      Who gets to decide what is "potential evidence"? If we're going to play language games, turning the chat history off doesn't really destroy anything, just prevents the paper trail from being created.
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        Well, I think the physical mechanism of turning off chat history on most of the modern chat platforms is to have a database delete each message after everyone in the conversation reads the message, which is a lot closer to destroying evidence than not making records. Also, if you destroy evidence that may be under litigation hold, the judge will instruct the jury to infer that what you deleted was harmful to your case.
      - iudqnolq 4y ago
        > Who gets to decide what is "potential evidence"? You have an obligation to proactively figure that out yourself. There is then oversight by the court. > If we're going to play language games Judges don't play that sort of language games > turning the chat history off doesn't really destroy anything What Google called off the record chats were 24 hour history chats. So the history was deleted after 24 hours, when it should have been preserved.
        glerk 4y ago
- lazyeye 4y ago
  Quite ironic...when you consider the lengths Google goes to, to retain everybody else's data.
  - froggit 4y ago
    Is that really irony though? It kind of seems like self-preservation. Based on what I merely suspect Google knows about me, it wouldn't be a surprise at all if I receive a letter of acceptance/rejection for employment there, despite having never applied nor considered doing so. "The algorithm" knows the plans that I haven't even thought about thinking about. However, these are not people that can merely speculate; they live at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Imagine you work for a company that has records about you with enough depth and granularity to have already calculated (with fp64 precision) everything you will ever do and contribute in your life (i.e. is your actual future cost/benefit ratio, not an estimated value, favorable enough to allow you to continue exist). Would you NOT make at least some sort of effort to stop "the algorithm" from consuming you? Would you just keep feeding "the algorithm" pieces of yourself until it eats enough of your being that it becomes you? It seems they've decided to save themselves by not saving their chats. I'm not a lawyer or anything, yet I'm getting a vibe like this kind of stuff prolly looks "kinda legally bad." Law things like this happen because there simply isn't time to waste worried about looking "kinda legally bad." It's natural to prioritize taking care of higher magnitude existential threats like getting processed by "the algorithm."
    - iainmerrick 4y ago
      No, if you actually read the messages, many of the employees want to turn history on, because it’s useful, but turn it off (or are instructed to turn it off) specifically to avoid being subject to legal discovery.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    Google has been getting a lot better. They let you change collection settings and delete your data. It’s a lot better than most companies do.
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago
  > Note: that's the argument the plaintiff's lawyers are making, not the final word on the matter This is not true anymore. The judge in the case determined that the DOJ was right. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363095
- miohtama 4y ago
  You can simply have this discussions in a room person-to-person privately. It gets a bit tricky privacy-wise if you cannot do same online. Though Google is probably the last company deserving any privacy.
EMIRELADERO 4y ago
Google was under a litigation hold order to preserve all written or otherwise recorded communications related to the litigation.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  The complaint was about foreseeable, future litigation.
dataflow 4y ago
> why isn't [...] Was there a case against Google already that bans this or something? According to [1], "The DOJ maintains Google should have suspended its auto-delete practices by 2019, when it was clear litigation was coming." I found more details in [2] on the legal topic of evidence spoliation that might be interesting, though I'm not a lawyer and don't know what which law(s) are relevant in this case. > And couldn't this just be circumvented by having an in-person meeting? Yes, but there's presumably a difference between deleting evidence vs. not having it in the first place. [1] https://gizmodo.com/google-employee-chats-deleted-evidence-justice-dept-1850155340 https://gizmodo.com/google-employee-chats-deleted-evidence-j... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba-cms-dotorg/products/inv/book/214612/Chapter%201.pdf#page=7 https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba-cms-dotorg/produ...
- c7DJTLrn 4y ago
  Thanks. The law is kind of silly. A chat system that doesn't store history is functionally equivalent to an unrecorded call, but I'm guessing they would not consider an unrecorded call destruction of evidence.
  - dataflow 4y ago
    It does record "history" - if it didn't, the recipient would see it appear and then immediately vanish in the next refresh of the screen, which is not the case. The thing is, it only keeps the history for a short period of time (hours/days). That's not the same thing as an unrecorded call, which isn't recorded for any period at all.
    - hackernewds 4y ago
      That is understood. However the medium begets a conversation around how most communication isn't recorded anyways, in this example if it were a phone call.
      - dataflow 4y ago
        I don't think I understand what you're trying to say. Could you please rephrase/clarify?
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Was there a case against Google already that bans this or something? There’s a general obligation to preserve records pertaining to the subject of actual ot reasonably anticipated litigation, and chats are records.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hackernewds 4y ago
> couldn't this just be circumvented by having an in-person meeting? here I present you a case for the perils of remote work
- jkaplowitz 4y ago
  I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that remote work doesn’t create a discoverable record if the conversation happens by unrecorded methods such as a video chat or phone call where the recording feature has not been enabled. The problem with Google Chat in this context is that even history-off Chats are kept for at least 24 hours before being destroyed (I’ve sometimes seen longer due to caching), so a record is created and then destroyed. That isn’t allowed when an obligation to preserve the record exists. I admit I don’t know whether something like un-logged IRC would be allowed, but at the very least, any IRC clients that do log the history even for the purpose of displaying it locally after a crash and restart would themselves create a discoverable record subject to any applicable preservation obligation. If you mean that remote workers are more likely to use Google Chat for sensitive information topics than in-person workers, yes, that could be an example of a peril of remote work. But, from the perspective of society rather than the company, making it harder for companies to hide misbehavior is actually an advantage of remote work. Disclosure: I have worked for Google in the past, but not for more than 8 years now, and I have no inside knowledge of or connection to anything discussed in the submitted PDF.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >I admit I don’t know whether something like un-logged IRC would be allowed, but at the very least, any IRC clients that do log the history even for the purpose of displaying it locally after a crash and restart would themselves create a discoverable record subject to any applicable preservation obligation. This logic gets absurd when you push it to the limits. For instance, any sort of VOIP call would imply deletion, since the voice packets have to be buffered in memory for it to be decoded and played back. At least with respect to copyright law, the interpretation is reasonable. For instance, intermediary routers that copy packets as they pass through do not commit copyright infringement. pictures/videos that get cached on your device also doesn't count as copyright infringement.

habitue 4y ago

The complaint details the reason it was not allowed in this case, though would be normally: the topics were subject to legal holds. > Like Mr. Pichai, other key Google employees, including those in leadership roles, routinely opted to move from history-on rooms to history-off Chats to hold sensitive conversations, even though they knew they were subject to legal holds. Indeed, they did so even when discussing topics they knew were covered by the litigation holds in order to avoid leaving a record that could be produced in litigation. As the examples below make clear, Google destroyed innumerable Chats with the intent to deprive Plaintiffs and other litigants of the use of these documents in litigation Note: that's the argument the plaintiff's lawyers are making, not the final word on the matter

irjustin 4y ago
Interesting, is there any documentation about the legal holds details?
- cmilton 4y ago
  https://support.google.com/vault/answer/7664657?hl=en https://support.google.com/vault/answer/7664657?hl=en
  - irjustin 4y ago
    mmm i'm looking for the legal documentation/language that requires google to hold the data for this particular topic. because i'm in agreement with the grandparent comment that why is the topic subject to legal holds vs just having a meeting in person? Are in person meetings rquired to have a voice recorder present? it seems like a weird legal precedent.
    - karpierz 4y ago
      You aren't required to make recordings. But if you made a recording, then you can't slate it for deletion. By disabling history, they're setting it up so records are deleted after 24 hours, instead of kept indefinitely. In the court's eyes, it's analogous to writing notes to each other, only to burn them the next day.
      - irjustin 4y ago
        > routinely opted to move from history-on rooms to history-off Chats to hold sensitive conversations The way this is worded there's no record, so there's no "slated for deletion"? I guess the question becomes, if it exists inside computer memory, is that legally equivalent to "writing down piece of paper" and thusly is considered destroying evidence? If I write something in disappearing ink (let's say it perfectly disappears), it's not destroying evidence? is it?
        cornstalks 4y ago
        There is a record. It exists for 24 hours. It’s not in just your local computer’s memory. It’s in the cloud, and you can see that history on any of your devices.
        irjustin 4y ago
        > It’s in the cloud, and you can see that history on any of your devices. For argument's sake, let's say it's not. It's a tunneled connection and all stops in between are only acting as relays. Is it still wiping it then if it only exists in memory and then gets garbage collected? is that destroying evidence?... maybe...?
        sebzim4500 4y ago
        I think that would probably be ok, same as if it was a phone call.
    - cmilton 4y ago
c7DJTLrn 4y ago
Thanks, I'm not familiar with what a legal hold is. Would they be obliged to take audio recordings or minutes of meetings due to this?
- rawgabbit 4y ago
  Not a lawyer. When a legal hold is issued, the company is instructed not to destroy potential evidence related to the case. They don’t have to perform additional recordings and minutes. But they exist, they can’t destroy it.
  - glerk 4y ago
    Who gets to decide what is "potential evidence"? If we're going to play language games, turning the chat history off doesn't really destroy anything, just prevents the paper trail from being created.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Well, I think the physical mechanism of turning off chat history on most of the modern chat platforms is to have a database delete each message after everyone in the conversation reads the message, which is a lot closer to destroying evidence than not making records. Also, if you destroy evidence that may be under litigation hold, the judge will instruct the jury to infer that what you deleted was harmful to your case.
    - iudqnolq 4y ago
      > Who gets to decide what is "potential evidence"? You have an obligation to proactively figure that out yourself. There is then oversight by the court. > If we're going to play language games Judges don't play that sort of language games > turning the chat history off doesn't really destroy anything What Google called off the record chats were 24 hour history chats. So the history was deleted after 24 hours, when it should have been preserved.
      - glerk 4y ago
lazyeye 4y ago
Quite ironic...when you consider the lengths Google goes to, to retain everybody else's data.
- froggit 4y ago
  Is that really irony though? It kind of seems like self-preservation. Based on what I merely suspect Google knows about me, it wouldn't be a surprise at all if I receive a letter of acceptance/rejection for employment there, despite having never applied nor considered doing so. "The algorithm" knows the plans that I haven't even thought about thinking about. However, these are not people that can merely speculate; they live at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Imagine you work for a company that has records about you with enough depth and granularity to have already calculated (with fp64 precision) everything you will ever do and contribute in your life (i.e. is your actual future cost/benefit ratio, not an estimated value, favorable enough to allow you to continue exist). Would you NOT make at least some sort of effort to stop "the algorithm" from consuming you? Would you just keep feeding "the algorithm" pieces of yourself until it eats enough of your being that it becomes you? It seems they've decided to save themselves by not saving their chats. I'm not a lawyer or anything, yet I'm getting a vibe like this kind of stuff prolly looks "kinda legally bad." Law things like this happen because there simply isn't time to waste worried about looking "kinda legally bad." It's natural to prioritize taking care of higher magnitude existential threats like getting processed by "the algorithm."
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    No, if you actually read the messages, many of the employees want to turn history on, because it’s useful, but turn it off (or are instructed to turn it off) specifically to avoid being subject to legal discovery.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Google has been getting a lot better. They let you change collection settings and delete your data. It’s a lot better than most companies do.
EMIRELADERO 4y ago
> Note: that's the argument the plaintiff's lawyers are making, not the final word on the matter This is not true anymore. The judge in the case determined that the DOJ was right. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363095
miohtama 4y ago
You can simply have this discussions in a room person-to-person privately. It gets a bit tricky privacy-wise if you cannot do same online. Though Google is probably the last company deserving any privacy.

EMIRELADERO 4y ago

Google was under a litigation hold order to preserve all written or otherwise recorded communications related to the litigation.

hgsgm 4y ago
The complaint was about foreseeable, future litigation.

dataflow 4y ago

> why isn't [...] Was there a case against Google already that bans this or something? According to [1], "The DOJ maintains Google should have suspended its auto-delete practices by 2019, when it was clear litigation was coming." I found more details in [2] on the legal topic of evidence spoliation that might be interesting, though I'm not a lawyer and don't know what which law(s) are relevant in this case. > And couldn't this just be circumvented by having an in-person meeting? Yes, but there's presumably a difference between deleting evidence vs. not having it in the first place. [1] https://gizmodo.com/google-employee-chats-deleted-evidence-justice-dept-1850155340 https://gizmodo.com/google-employee-chats-deleted-evidence-j... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba-cms-dotorg/products/inv/book/214612/Chapter%201.pdf#page=7 https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba-cms-dotorg/produ...

c7DJTLrn 4y ago
Thanks. The law is kind of silly. A chat system that doesn't store history is functionally equivalent to an unrecorded call, but I'm guessing they would not consider an unrecorded call destruction of evidence.
- dataflow 4y ago
  It does record "history" - if it didn't, the recipient would see it appear and then immediately vanish in the next refresh of the screen, which is not the case. The thing is, it only keeps the history for a short period of time (hours/days). That's not the same thing as an unrecorded call, which isn't recorded for any period at all.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    That is understood. However the medium begets a conversation around how most communication isn't recorded anyways, in this example if it were a phone call.
    - dataflow 4y ago
      I don't think I understand what you're trying to say. Could you please rephrase/clarify?

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Was there a case against Google already that bans this or something? There’s a general obligation to preserve records pertaining to the subject of actual ot reasonably anticipated litigation, and chats are records.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hackernewds 4y ago

> couldn't this just be circumvented by having an in-person meeting? here I present you a case for the perils of remote work

jkaplowitz 4y ago
I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that remote work doesn’t create a discoverable record if the conversation happens by unrecorded methods such as a video chat or phone call where the recording feature has not been enabled. The problem with Google Chat in this context is that even history-off Chats are kept for at least 24 hours before being destroyed (I’ve sometimes seen longer due to caching), so a record is created and then destroyed. That isn’t allowed when an obligation to preserve the record exists. I admit I don’t know whether something like un-logged IRC would be allowed, but at the very least, any IRC clients that do log the history even for the purpose of displaying it locally after a crash and restart would themselves create a discoverable record subject to any applicable preservation obligation. If you mean that remote workers are more likely to use Google Chat for sensitive information topics than in-person workers, yes, that could be an example of a peril of remote work. But, from the perspective of society rather than the company, making it harder for companies to hide misbehavior is actually an advantage of remote work. Disclosure: I have worked for Google in the past, but not for more than 8 years now, and I have no inside knowledge of or connection to anything discussed in the submitted PDF.
- gruez 4y ago
  >I admit I don’t know whether something like un-logged IRC would be allowed, but at the very least, any IRC clients that do log the history even for the purpose of displaying it locally after a crash and restart would themselves create a discoverable record subject to any applicable preservation obligation. This logic gets absurd when you push it to the limits. For instance, any sort of VOIP call would imply deletion, since the voice packets have to be buffered in memory for it to be decoded and played back. At least with respect to copyright law, the interpretation is reasonable. For instance, intermediary routers that copy packets as they pass through do not commit copyright infringement. pictures/videos that get cached on your device also doesn't count as copyright infringement.