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Judge mulls sanctions over Google's destruction of internal chats
- _lvbh 2y agoThe 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 2y 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.
- fbdab103 2y agoIf 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.
- nl 2y agoIt'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.
- ceroxylon 2y agoI 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 2y agoIs 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 2y agoA double standard. Sadly present in most communities since the dawn of humanity.
- cess11 2y agoAre you sure about that?
- mcmoor 2y agoI've heard the idiom of "knive policy", sharp at the bottom, dull at the top.
- nl 2y agoI 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)
- dwaite 2y agoYou 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.
- ameister14 2y 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?
- juped 2y agoLearn to use the phone when you want an undiscoverable chat, like everyone else on the planet.
- rl3 2y agoTechnically that's discoverable, too. Just needs to be a national security matter.
- ARandomerDude 2y agoSadly we live in an era in which mass wiretapping, automated transcription and flagging, and parallel construction are not unreasonable concerns.
- varjag 2y agoWiretapping google executives is two orders of legal magnitude more difficult than sending the company a discovery order.
- ceroxylon 2y agoAs long as you're not a target: https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChTelRTP.html#ChTelRtpPlayer https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChTelRTP.ht... https://www.cs.unc.edu/~fabian/papers/foniks-oak11.pdf https://www.cs.unc.edu/~fabian/papers/foniks-oak11.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fsckboy 2y agoThe 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 2y agoThat'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 2y ago"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." 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.
- colechristensen 2y agoRegulated industries just require saving of communications. It seems like maybe that should be the standard.
- ceinewydd 2y agoDo 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?
- bawolff 2y agoThere does seem a big difference between requiring things to be recorded and simply requiring that people don't actively take action to prevent recording.
- stale2002 2y ago> Do you think that should extend to recording some or all meetings at a company? That depends. Did the court order that to happen? (Like in this situation!) If so, then yes, the company should follow the lawful order of the court. And if such an order is unlawful, then they should appeal it, and do what the appeal court orders them to do.
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- nullc 2y agoBeing 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 2y agoYou 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.
- nullc 2y agoThis 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 2y agoELI5: why is there any expectation for corporations to keep chat logs or emails long term? Is there some legal requirement I don't understand?
- ARandomerDude 2y agoRead the article
- derwiki 2y agoI 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?
- graton 2y agoIs the default to record all audio conversations in the office? No. Is the default to record all chat conversations? Yes. Then Google enacted a policy to have employees turn off the recording of chat conversations if they were going to discuss certain topics.
- px43 2y agoI've been primarily using end to end encrypted self destructing chats for maybe 20 years at this point, especially for work stuff. Why should other people's poor data hygiene put my data at risk?
- ikiris 2y agoIts really simple, if you're in litigation, you are legally obligated not to destroy written records, and produce them based on discovery requests. If you delete chat, that is destroying written records.
- denton-scratch 2y ago
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoSorry, 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.
- smt88 2y agoThe 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_io 2y agoI 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.
- ikiris 2y agoIf you're telling a judge "I specifically hide all written communication that I'm legally required to hold and produce so that you can't see it" you're gonna have a bad time.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zarzavat 2y ago> Am I somehow held to a different standard just because I was paranoid about surveillance from the start? Yes, how else could it work? For example if you have a policy to destroy CCTV footage at the end of the day then it’s not illegal to do that. If you have a policy to keep CCTV footage but when the police come and ask you some questions you delete it because you know that it contains evidence of a crime, that’s destruction of evidence. It’s not illegal to delete things, otherwise the world would run out of storage, it’s illegal to delete things to knowingly impede an investigation.
- hindsightbias 2y agomy 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.
- dwaite 2y agoIs your corp under court order to preserve written communications? That may be an important difference between them and Google.
- petesergeant 2y agoCertainly 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.
- Dudhbbh3343 2y 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?
- yard2010 2y agoYou end up living in one anyway.
- ken47 2y agoTo 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_io 2y agoYes. 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?
- ken47 2y 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.
- cornel_io 2y agoGoogle has great lawyers. They don't flinch or buckle.
- bdd8f1df777b 2y ago> Depends on what their risk-reward appetite is. That's the same for DoJ. In fact, for them it's all wins and no loses. In the worst case their argument just doesn't stick.
- pyrale 2y 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.
- ETH_start 2y agoThe state ought to have no legal right to compel people to keep records of their private communications.
- pjc50 2y agoIt's a publicly listed company, not a "person".
- ETH_start 2y agoThe 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.
- pjc50 2y agoYou've forgotten what "limited liability" means. The contractual arrangement between individuals is usually accounted as a "partnership". (also, taking the position that it's just a cloud of individuals is worse for them in this case, since that would enable every employee who disabled chat saving to be jailed for contempt of court)
- ETH_start 2y agoLimited liability only confers extra-contractual benefits to the shareholders in the case of tort against parties which hadn't contracted with the offending party. Before limited liability laws into effect, limited liability "already emerged through free contracting". [1] The common law version comes without the problematic 'limited liability for tort' element that limited liability statutes introduce. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240301154801/https://admin.fee.org/files/doclib/feat5.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20240301154801/https://admin.fee...
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- mjburgess 2y agoCritical 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- magicalist 2y agoYou 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 2y agoYou'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.
- lokar 2y agoMost (all?) cases I’ve seen are in finance where the SEC, FINRA, etc has special rules that call out text messaging specifically.
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- dragonwriter 2y agoNote 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-deleting-internal-chat-logs-central-to-antitrust-cases/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/03/28/judge-sanctions-google-for...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Sai_ 2y agoSend Pichai to jail for a week and watch the CEOs of the biggest companies fall over themselves to comply with court instructions.
- rasz 2y agoDont 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-resume-with-bankers-testimony-2024-04-30/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-nyc-hush-money-trial-... Courts work in different mode when dealing with the rich.
- somenameforme 2y agoViolating 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 2y agoWhy the CEO instead of the board?
- TheCoelacanth 2y agoWhy not both?
- datavirtue 2y agoMost 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 2y agoIt'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_jeeves2 2y agoThe 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoThis 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_jeeves2 2y agoSo hire a thug to kill another thug, what could go wrong?
- codedokode 2y agoWhat 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 2y agoThe problem is that they might have been required by law to keep the data
- codedokode 2y agoIf "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.
- FireBeyond 2y ago> If "keep the data" means "keep exsiting data" then disabling logging for new conversations seems ok. Google has two modes of conversation history retention. The first, the default, is "delete after 24h". The second, which is opt-in only, and apparently extremely rarely used, is "delete after 30d". Google attempted to be too tricky for the court. They decided that when place on legal hold, they'd continue to retain the opt-in messages only, and continue to delete the 24h retention messages, which is not what they were told to do. And then, because they thought they could get away with it, on dozens of occasions they told the DOJ and the courts that they were holding and retaining all message history... (except the 99% they were still deleting).
- GauntletWizard 2y agoIt'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 2y agoIt’s amazing to me that it cannot be interpreted as obstruction of justice to say “don’t record illegal conversations”
- JaceLightning 2y agoCould you make the same argument about in person chats out loud? If so, then they better record everything their employees say!
- Log_out_ 2y agoRICO to use Software as a legal shield