this post was submitted on 05 May 2024

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359

Judge mulls sanctions over Google’s “shocking” destruction of internal chats (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 99 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Even the judge hates that Google keeps shutting down projects unexpectedly

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 14 points 6 months ago

Put them in the graveyard

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 72 points 6 months ago (3 children)

"it's shocking they didn't make a record of their illegal behaviors"

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 105 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It is shocking because they did it after the investigation had started, which is monumentally stupid.

You can destroy any records you want at any time, unless there's an investigation underway or you have good reason to believe one will be starting. At that point, you're destroying evidence.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 59 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The crazy part is the implication that the evidence destroyed was probably more damning than having a judge and jury assume anything reasonably suggested to have been implicated by those chats as true.

[–] eronth@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I wager they're so used to getting away with shit that destroying evidence probably says less about the crimes committed and more about the piss-poor justice system.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

*sigh* After reading some of the other comments, I have to agree. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or even more discouraged. It's a dreadfully boring dystopia.

[–] fluckx@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Must be the evidence was more damning than the SCT of destroying evidence

[–] teft@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago

[–] firadin@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago

No, it's shocking that the destroyed evidence after being explicitly instructed not to.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 46 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Make destroying evidence a worse offense than the crime (or as a de facto admission of guilt) and sanction them accordingly.

[–] firadin@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago

It is for us plebs, look up adverse inference

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

$10 says they're backed up somewhere.

A company like Google has redundant backups in their veins.

Just sayin.

[–] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 29 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well, until legal gets involved.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 6 months ago

Dawg google is above the law

They make your phone, most likely

[–] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

Don't Be Evil!^TM

[–] dukethorion@lemmy.world -3 points 6 months ago

Just tell DOJ the guy in charge of server backup and retention didn't know what they were doing. Worked for Hillary.

[+] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip -82 points 6 months ago (5 children)

You shouldn't use deleted chats as evidence. That is a precedent that should not be a allowed to stand. Its up there with Tor users automatically being criminals.

I'm am sure they can find some evidence even if they have to fall back to interviews of employees.

[–] subignition@fedia.io 79 points 6 months ago (1 children)

According to the DOJ, Google destroyed potentially hundreds of thousands of chat sessions not just during their investigation but also during litigation. Google only stopped the practice after the DOJ discovered the policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampering_with_evidence#Spoliation

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 30 points 6 months ago

However, in U.S. federal courts, updates to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2015 have resulted in significant decline in spoliation sanctions.

Oof. Five bucks says this change was driven by concerted megacorp lobbying efforts.

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 48 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Actively destroying evidence should mean automatic inferral of the worst.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Only if you are able to imagine the worst.

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Dreadfully true

[–] Hegar@kbin.social 31 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Google was accused of enacting a policy instructing employees to turn chat history off by default when discussing sensitive topics

According to the DOJ, Google destroyed potentially hundreds of thousands of chat sessions not just during their investigation but also during litigation. Google only stopped the practice after the DOJ discovered the policy. DOJ's attorney Kenneth Dintzer told Mehta Friday that 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.

It's perfectly reasonable to see this practice of avoiding the creation of evidence of their wrongdoing as evidence of wrongdoing, which is 100% what it is.

It's not the same as a person using TOR, it's a company hiding evidence.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago (2 children)

One day people will read my posts before commenting. I hope…

[–] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Pfft. Then you'll be complaining about all the dummies that didn't even understand your progressively more simple prose as you try to explain semi-complex concepts to people with no shared educational background

[+] Darkenfolk@dormi.zone -11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What post? You just dumped a link on lemmy with a title attached to it.

Not even a small summary or anything, something that I would consider the bare minimum for a post.

[–] june@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There's this neat feature where if you click on the link, you actually get the whole article

[+] Darkenfolk@dormi.zone -10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

True, but what do I need this "post" for then?

It's just kinda irritating to me that I need to open an additional window for something that should've been in the post to begin with.

Title and small summary, that's all I'm asking for here. Give me the bare minimum to decide if opening the whole article is worth it.

[–] dukethorion@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy is a link aggregator. Type those words into your ChatAI and it'll tell you a story.

[–] Darkenfolk@dormi.zone -1 points 6 months ago

Well it's great that you have that opinion on lemmy, I prefer something that doesn't look like a bot-post and actually has some content.

[–] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

welp, better get working on the next big internet thing then

hey, did you know there are other "implementations" - basically skins for lemmy, one of which I seem to recall looking more like what you're asking for. They were sidebarred somewhere, see if you can find those

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

I’m here to share and discuss.

[–] applepie@kbin.social 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You have zero understanding about corpoorate governence and record detection laws. You should get educated instead of providing uneducated opinions lol