Nationalize google and incarcerate their board.
Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google senior executives told employees to destroy messages
Submitted 13 hours ago by dwazou@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-antitrust-employee-messages.html
Comments
PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 13 hours ago
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Eh, you sure we want to give control of that shit to Trump and his people?
tux0r@feddit.org 13 hours ago
I’m not sure whether it could be worse.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
they already have these companies wiretapped since thearly 2000s
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I read this as “incinerate”. A principled, pragmatic opposition to the death penalty in any case I can think of is the only reason I would disapprove.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
Thats uh… thats a gigantic crime rofl, fucking wow.
Not quite sure exactly what that slots into, tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice… but uh yeah wow dang, that’s the kinda thing that can actually lead to charges against the actual people that do this, if not at least the people that order other to.
Great job, morons!
j4k3@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Musk is still free and has been openly doing this with self driving junk for years. This is the USA where we haven’t had reasonable laws passed since the 1970s.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Nah, nothing will happen. At worst they get slapped on the hands with a few million dollars, and no one will care.
Jail these fuckers, jail them for long times, jail them now
spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
Not quite sure exactly what that slots into, tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice, not complying with the discovery process.
Pretty sure that’s a hat trick
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
These types of requests always backfire. We got a similar request when I worked for a very large corporation and the very first thing I did was create a backup of our Lotus Notes and take it home. Just in case.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
And someone spoke up, right?
…
Right…?
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
Actually, yes. It led to a huge lawsuit and changes in legislation regarding 401k contributions.
j0ester@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Just use Signal. You may be in Pete Hegseth’s next message.
sbv@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
He still hasn’t added me to any chats. What should I do?
j0ester@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Did you say in your profile you’re a reporter? Ahha
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
This is why companies have data retention settings to automatically delete old emails and slack/teams/etc. and special processes a classifications to store those communications that relate to contracts and such.
fishpen0@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
This is why compliance frameworks have retention policies that combat the natural desire companies have to destroy their own records and logs. SOX retention rules are directly the result of realizing Enron only could be busted after their emails were recovered.
Twice in my career I’ve been at an org where the legal team decided to destroy all emails over a year old and then a year or two later had the same company revert that rule after deciding to go public and being forced by SOX audits to start retaining records again.
Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
I was gonna say, the SEC may as well not exist now.
Along with every other safeguard designed to protect the people from corruption.
The sundowning rapist felon traitor’s handlers made sure of that.
Ulrich@feddit.org 13 hours ago
I’ve always wondered, is this illegal? Like obviously it is if they’ve already been subpoenaed or something.
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Nah it’s illegal to deliberately destroy data to impede investigations. You don’t need to have an open investigation for that to be the case.
It remains legal to get rid of old files to free up space or if you genuinely believe they aren’t necessary, though, so you need to prove intent.
If there’s a subpeona or something, their destruction is itself a crime, but under this law, its the intent to defraud the courts that’s illegal, and that intent is always illegal.
The law exists specifically for this situation. Purging important business documents preemptively is clearly not OK.
Citation: legalclarity.org/18-u-s-c-1519-destruction-altera…
Enkers@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
Just to add, if it’s found that evidence was destroyed, beyond potential seperate charges for the destruction itself, a judge would also typically give an averse inference instruction to the jury. That means the jury should assume that the destroyed evidence would have been damning to whomever destroyed it.
What that tells me is, assuming google acted rationally in the destruction, either they thinks they have a reasonable chance that they can beat the evidence destruction charges, or that the evidence is so damning that the reality of the situation is considerably worse than whatever adverse inferences might be drawn.
(I am not a lawyer, so please take my interpretation with a grain of salt.)
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 11 hours ago
Do you happen to know when the last time was that a rich company was prosecuted for this?
It seems a lot like the perjury laws: there to scare poor people into telling the truth because of almost non-existant prosecution of it.
And if it is a fine and not jail time (white collar crimes are almost never jail time) the fine would have to be much larger than the penalties they would not have to pay because of the crime, otherwise it is simply a net win for the company
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
It’s white collar crime. They’ll pay a fine which will mean nothing to them, and nobody will go to jail. That’s how it works.
beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 13 hours ago
It’s illegal if antitrust action is anticipated, according to the article. That said, I know that most places I’ve worked have had a document retention policy that called for automatic deletion of most documents after some time period, like a year.
Ulrich@feddit.org 13 hours ago
It’s illegal if antitrust action is anticipated
That seems like something that would be difficult to prove.
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
First thing I do when I’m told to delete messages is SecureDrop them to the press
ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
they weren’t feeling lucky?
beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 13 hours ago
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
And again, that should result in jail time for all of those executives and all employees that actually destroyed messages
JAIL THEM, JAIL THEM NOW, JAIL THEM LONG
This sort of shit behavior will never end and only get worse until we, instead of hand slapping, start jailing these fuckers.
Jail a bunch of CEO’s for breaking the law and watch how fast they start behaving.