4 ms·

It's very clear-cut. The topic is about deleting data. There's a massive difference in deleting records that did exists vs. records that never existed in the f

It's very clear-cut. The topic is about deleting data. There's a massive difference in deleting records that did exists vs. records that never existed in the first place. The former is deleting data, the second case isn't.

auggierose 4y ago
I think I explained why it isn't that clear-cut, even when it is about deleting data. I guess that's why there are courts, and not only HN opinions.
- nolok 4y ago
  It is clear cut. Let's give you a concrete exemple we have had rulings on without any computer involved, which are almost a 1:1 situation: you are on litigation hold, and aren't allowed to destroy any records. You do an oral meeting, with no plans to put it on paper. Unknown to you, someone took notes during the meeting, say your secretary because she didn't feel well that day and wanted to be sure to remember it the next day. Although those notes were not planned to exist, once they do destroying them is destroying records, and you're in violation of the litigation hold. You may not notice her take note, and then see her pull the notes our of her bag the next day and at that point it's illegal for you to ask her to destroy them.
  - auggierose 4y ago
    What if she used the notes, and then destroyed them herself, without me ever noticing anything?
    - nolok 4y ago
      It's still a violation by the company. For obvious reason, otherwise you find a "fall guy" to do just that and "oh I was not aware I shouldn't delete this stack of documents".
  - devrand 4y ago
    I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. There is the whole situation of people asking to switch to the no history mode, but that's not retroactively applied and it's really no different than sending an email that says "let's talk about this over the phone". The real open question is whether Chats can have a temporary nature to them as they are inherently a written record. But there's also other situations where you can have a written record, for example, if someone uses auto-captions on a video call. They're very short-lived, but they did exist for some duration.
    - nolok 4y ago
      > I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. I am not sure why you are making this distinction when it doesn't exists. Litigation hold also means stop all software automation that would result in destruction of record, doesn't matter how many people know about it. Case in point: that is what happens to their 30 days old chat. This is the same thing if you trigger a litigation hold on your office365 account or whatever. And for the rest of your point: not only does the law not accept the "oh but I didn't know", for the obvious reason that then it's an easy out, but even if they did tolerate extreme exemple of it Google cannot in good faith claim lack of knowledge about THEIR OWN system, the litigation hold was not for those specific people who may or may not know it, it was for the company who is then in charge of ensuring their IT team does what the court ordered.
      - devrand 4y ago
        I don't see where I stated that anyone was claiming ignorance. My point still holds: users had the option to create a record, but it was not the default. From that perspective the comparison provided does not hold. The real debate is about whether "off the record" text can exist at all, and if so, under what conditions/duration? Are captions on a video call a text record? Do those need to be retained?

auggierose 4y ago

I think I explained why it isn't that clear-cut, even when it is about deleting data. I guess that's why there are courts, and not only HN opinions.

nolok 4y ago
It is clear cut. Let's give you a concrete exemple we have had rulings on without any computer involved, which are almost a 1:1 situation: you are on litigation hold, and aren't allowed to destroy any records. You do an oral meeting, with no plans to put it on paper. Unknown to you, someone took notes during the meeting, say your secretary because she didn't feel well that day and wanted to be sure to remember it the next day. Although those notes were not planned to exist, once they do destroying them is destroying records, and you're in violation of the litigation hold. You may not notice her take note, and then see her pull the notes our of her bag the next day and at that point it's illegal for you to ask her to destroy them.
- auggierose 4y ago
  What if she used the notes, and then destroyed them herself, without me ever noticing anything?
  - nolok 4y ago
    It's still a violation by the company. For obvious reason, otherwise you find a "fall guy" to do just that and "oh I was not aware I shouldn't delete this stack of documents".
- devrand 4y ago
  I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. There is the whole situation of people asking to switch to the no history mode, but that's not retroactively applied and it's really no different than sending an email that says "let's talk about this over the phone". The real open question is whether Chats can have a temporary nature to them as they are inherently a written record. But there's also other situations where you can have a written record, for example, if someone uses auto-captions on a video call. They're very short-lived, but they did exist for some duration.
  - nolok 4y ago
    > I'm not sure that's a comparable situation as someone explicitly took an action to make a record. In the case of Chat it's all software automation. No one is explicitly taking an action to make a record or destroy a record. I am not sure why you are making this distinction when it doesn't exists. Litigation hold also means stop all software automation that would result in destruction of record, doesn't matter how many people know about it. Case in point: that is what happens to their 30 days old chat. This is the same thing if you trigger a litigation hold on your office365 account or whatever. And for the rest of your point: not only does the law not accept the "oh but I didn't know", for the obvious reason that then it's an easy out, but even if they did tolerate extreme exemple of it Google cannot in good faith claim lack of knowledge about THEIR OWN system, the litigation hold was not for those specific people who may or may not know it, it was for the company who is then in charge of ensuring their IT team does what the court ordered.
    - devrand 4y ago
      I don't see where I stated that anyone was claiming ignorance. My point still holds: users had the option to create a record, but it was not the default. From that perspective the comparison provided does not hold. The real debate is about whether "off the record" text can exist at all, and if so, under what conditions/duration? Are captions on a video call a text record? Do those need to be retained?