Hasnain says:

Google argues this was a standard policy and wasn’t malicious, which is kinda hilarious given the below HN comment (and the fact that they were ordered to change this default by the court and just… didn’t).

“We have evidence that Google execs instructed their relations to turn off chat specifically to avoid future discovery [1]. Excerpt from this document :

> In one Chat, Mr. Pichai began discussing a substantive topic, and then immediately wrote: “also can we change the setting of this group to history off.”1 Then, nine seconds later, Mr. Pichai apparently attempted (unsuccessfully) to delete this incriminating message.”

“>All this time, Google falsely told the United States that Google had "put a legal hold in place" that "suspends auto-deletion." Indeed, during the United States' investigation and the discovery phase of this litigation, Google repeatedly misrepresented its document preservation policies, which conveyed the false impression that the company was preserving all custodial chats. Not only did Google unequivocally assert during the investigation that its legal hold suspended auto-deletion, but Google continually failed to disclose—both to the United States and to the Court—its 24-hour auto-deletion policy. Instead, at every turn, Google reaffirmed that it was preserving and searching all potentially relevant written communications.”

Posted on 2024-05-05T14:43:07+0000