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Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

I feel like large companies no longer have any excuse for not storing all text communications for a decade or longer. Text is small. Storage is cheap. The idea that you just can't keep all these text messages is absurd.

A recent criminal case in Canada was thrown out because the police decided to turn off their body cam mics while they had a conversation of what they were going to do during their arrest of the accused. The judge decided it was suppression of evidence by the police. (I agree with the decision).

A CEO choosing not to record certain conversations is, in my view, not that far from different. It's taking active action to ensure there's no record when it would have been easier to have the record: a clear sign that they don't want someone to know that was said.

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There is effectively no upside to retaining records from years ago, only downside when it comes back to bite you in the future.

This is as true for corporate emails as it is for your ten year old social media posts.

The upside is a lack of adverse inference.

In an adversarial case like this, that seems to make sense.

The issue is that there are many, many groups that would happily sue a company to achieve a hostile objective (get access to proprietary insights, change public opinion, etc.) irrespective of the merits of their argument.

Accountability matters, but 100% observability and transparency do not automatically deliver it.

As a startup founder I tried, As many other founders have. In my circle we all learned the same lesson. Self-interested observers could pollute “the commons” very quickly and break the company culture.

Exactly, these companies spoiled just train these employees on not to break the law. It’s the drive to find an edge over competitors that’s making employees take these unethical behaviors. When they realize nobody’s watching, they’re more likely to act unethically.

A good comparison is the outrage that arises at speed cameras. People can’t believe that a camera could write a ticket for them. They’ll spoof and obscure license plates, take alternate routes, and try all sorts of things to avoid following the law. Just don’t speed and you’ll be ok. Don’t act unethically in business and you’ll be ok too.

>"Don’t act unethically in business and you’ll be ok too."

Easy to say, but the real world is full of grey areas, judgement calls, and interpretations. We don't have a law that says "don't act unethically" because it is way too broad. Regardless, you would still need a judge or a jury in order to make a verdict that unethical actions were taken.

Ethics is not something that requires written laws to understand. Acting ethically will avoid fines and penalties, but that’s not the purpose of acting ethically. Ethics is a superset of good laws. If laws were the only way to understand ethics we would be unable to define ethics, as you are getting at.

Here’s a good article from London talking about the grey area argument and where it leads and how to counter it at your company.

https://www.london.edu/think/business-ethics-black-white-or-...

> Ethics is a superset of good laws.

But not a superset of real laws. You can't avoid gray areas even with 100% ethical behavior.

Isn't this essentially the conclusion the finance industry came to? Don't talk to coworkers, customers and partners outside of official channels.

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