[HN Gopher] FTC says Amazon executives destroyed potential evide...
___________________________________________________________________
FTC says Amazon executives destroyed potential evidence using apps
like Signal
Author : belter
Score : 39 points
Date : 2024-04-27 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > accused of using a chat app
|
| > You can't use apps for what they're designed for!
|
| my sides, in orbit
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Guns are made for shooting, but murder is still illegal.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Murder = killing without just cause.
|
| Killing is not illegal (for self defense, or to save an
| innocent life). Neither is revolting against an oppressive
| government in the US, as per the constitution.
| pylua wrote:
| I would have imagine most major ceos are on constant litigation
| hold considering the sheer volume of lawsuits.
|
| If I am reading that correctly, the ceo got a litigation hold
| from internal legal nine months after the original issuance to
| Amazon ? That is also strange.
| branon wrote:
| Good, this is why E2EE and user-controlled communications need
| protected at all costs. Citizens need to defend the right to
| communicate privately and ephemerally from government snoops.
| Because if they can force (or try to) Amazon to fork over comms
| records, they can do the same to me or to you.
|
| Destruction of evidence is one thing, let them get nailed for
| that. But they weren't afraid to communicate privately and
| neither should we.
|
| And we can't let the government hold these antitrust suits up as
| an example of "this is why we need to break encryption, so we can
| protect consumers from the big bad monopolies" either. I bet
| that'll be the narrative at some point.
| dwallin wrote:
| This is not two citizens having a private conversation. These
| are actions and conversations taken on behalf of a corporation.
| Corporations are given tons of privileges, but in exchange they
| have additional responsibilities that individuals do not have.
| If employees cause the company to violate those
| responsibilities the employees are generally not held directly
| responsible (unless they were directly violating a law). It's
| the company itself who is held liable for the actions of its
| employees in this case.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Agreed. If their data is safe, the rest of us are safe, too.
| I'll keep using Signal.
| jrockway wrote:
| I've never been a big fan of mandatory message retention. To me,
| it just seems like punishment for the literate. You don't make
| people under litigation holds carry around a voice recorder all
| day, so you're giving people an out; if they are a more talkative
| person than a writing person. Since writing is harder than
| talking, this has always felt awfully unfair.
|
| As for the lack of messages in this case, they always say the
| coverup is worse than the crime, but if you don't know what the
| crime is, how can you be so sure?
| vlovich123 wrote:
| One difference is that writing and digital communication more
| broadly is a far more efficient communication mechanism than in
| person voice communications.
|
| > of using the ephemeral messaging app for months after the
| feds notified Amazon of the antitrust investigation
|
| I think switching to ephemeral messaging apps specifically in
| response to antitrust investigation is evidence of mens rea
| that you're in an illicit conspiracy. As for the crime:
|
| > The FTC accused Amazon of creating a secret "Project Nessie"
| pricing algorithm that may have generated more than $1 billion
| in extra profits.)
|
| You can distrust the government or not believe their argument,
| but our criminal justice system does depend on the government
| being able to perform an investigation.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > I've never been a big fan of mandatory message retention
|
| It's the price of being publicly traded, which is born out of
| our lessons learned from the Enron scandal, and gave us
| incredibly simple SOX regulations, and decades of strange
| antipathy towards them.
|
| > it just seems like punishment for the literate.
|
| Are you suggesting that companies are eschewing written
| communication for verbal communication as a means of bypassing
| this legislation? And that it's unfair you have no similar
| bypass? That's a pretty morally relative take.
|
| > but if you don't know what the crime is, how can you be so
| sure?
|
| You've precisely described _why_ the coverup is seen as worse
| than the crime.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| OP is specifically comparing voice to text. So it's nothing
| to do with being publicly traded.
|
| Publicly traded companies aren't expected to record all voice
| conversations done by their employees and retain those
| recordings for future court cases.
|
| That's the double-standard that OP is pointing out. There
| seems to be an expectation that text chat should be recorded
| and persisted and audio not.
|
| This is a vestige of an old era when text was for more
| "formal" or serious conversation and chat for informal.
|
| Today with IM-ing and remote work text can be as ephemeral as
| voice.
| ararar wrote:
| Most Fortune 500 companies have (I am extrapolating wildly here
| since I haven't worked at all of them) email retention policies
| that specify that emails will not be kept past a certain time
| after reception. So when an opposing lawyer requires the emails
| that were sent a year ago ... well, those were deleted as per
| policy. It's weird that if the companies had a policy to
| immediately delete them it would be "bad" but if they delete them
| after 30 days due to "storage" reasons and a clear, global,
| openly stated policy, it's OK. It doesn't stop someone from
| stuffing old emails in a folder.
| jgtor wrote:
| For exactly the same reasons, Amazon limits message retentions on
| it's internal Slack platform and aggressively enforces mailbox
| quotas in it's internal email system. Up to some shady
| shenanigans, and don't have to hand it over as part of discovery
| if they don't got the record in the first place. Exactly the same
| way criminal gangs operate!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| Washington Post article referenced:
|
| _Federal regulators accuse Amazon executives of deleting
| messages_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40182270
| nickff wrote:
| Somewhat ironic for government officials to say that private
| organizations are destroying evidence by using these apps. I
| heard an interview with Janet Napoletano (when she was secretary
| of homeland security) saying she avoided corresponding over
| e-mail or instant message to avoid leaving a 'paper trail'.
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| I could be wrong, but my assumption is that tech companies with a
| lot of talent develop their own messaging apps for the execs and
| friends. Why would they risk using a popular platform? The data
| could be sent via whatever medium, doesn't need to be ethernet. I
| also assume this is how most illegal collusion is done as well,
| unless someone wants to give me other data points.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-04-27 23:00 UTC)