yallpendantools

Caveat: I did not read the embedded pdfs but I did read the article, and nothing there even alludes to anything like a retention policy.

Even the wording of the accusation does not even imply a policy:

> 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

Routinely opted is not a policy. A policy is formal, not an option you routinely take.

I'll wager even the best lawyers will be hard-pressed to prove this routine is primarily to render discovery impossible. In fact, on face value alone it will be hard to objectively prove any purpose to this, unless more info/evidence/data/witnesses come up.

The text that follows my quote

> 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.

makes assumptions that you can only speculate on, not prove. Sure, they were discussing topics covered by the litigation and then pivoted to private chat within nine seconds. Does it follow that the part of the conversation they moved off-record (and hence we are not privy to) is also definitely covered by litigation and could affect the outcome of the trial? Not necessarily (although likely, alas courts don't settle for likely).

Your analogy uses loaded terms (co-conspirator) and makes use of biased character portrayals (alone by a sketchy bridge at 2AM, don't wear a wire).

Even in this case, unless the court issued an order that forbids physical meet-up/contact between the accused, I don't see anything the court can hold against them. Meeting at a bridge at 2AM is not a crime, and doesn't mean they are avoiding anything other than other people.

But in this case, an "irrelevant topic" can range from something exclusively Google's business (like details of a new product) to something uber-mundane or even personal.

So, really, unless the legal hold on Google is a blanket, encompassing order to preserve all internal comms, I find it difficult to be objectively certain they are at fault here.

But how can you say the conversation that happened off-record does pertain to the matter at hand? How can you preserve something that was not created in the first place?

> Turning history off when you are under a retention order is likely to be equivalent to destroying records, in the eyes of a judge.

> "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"

Nah, I think that's too far. There are simply too many legitimate reasons for Google to turn history off. What if they are switching to a topic irrelevant to the case and, therefore, not covered by discovery? You can only prove they had a sensitive conversation they wanted no record of, but you can't prove that that sensitive conversation is under the "legal hold" they were in. Even if all the context of the on-record chat seem to imply a crucial bit is coming up, you can't really prove the crucial bit did come up. It's all based on speculation.

> If they wanted to be truly off the record, they should have met in person or made a phone call.

So... `spichai: let's take this to an ephemeral chat` will be viewed negatively but `spichai: let's discuss this in person` is completely normal? I'm not buying it.

Maybe don't present a problem as "American" when the problem is global? The problem is not so much that America manufactures poverty as much as that the consumerist(/capitalist) economic system the majority of the world depends on manufactures poverty. The article is just listing out American symptoms of a global disease.

I agree with you but unfortunately beggars can't be choosers. America speaking English, strength of the USD, all contribute to making the US the most attractive (if not the only) option. When you're poor and just taking chances, you make the best of what you're presented.