Posted on 11/17/2004 3:41:37 PM PST by Peelod
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3437251
Burst.com Alleges Microsoft Cover-Up By Susan Kuchinskas November 17, 2004
One of the last two companies standing against what it calls Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior said it has smoking-gun proof that Redmond deliberately destroyed evidence in an antitrust case.
Burst.com, creator of video and audio delivery software for IP networks, claims that Redmond stole technology and trade secrets acquired during two years of negotiations.
In a June 2002 civil suit, Burst.com accused Microsoft (Quote, Chart) of anti-competitive behavior and violating federal and state antitrust laws.
Now, court documents claim, Burst.com has evidence that Microsoft followed a policy of deliberately destroying e-mail that could be used as evidence against it. Legal documents made public on Wednesday include evidence of a 1995 "do-not-save-e-mail directive," and a "30-Day E-Mail Destruction Rule" promulgated by Jim Allchin, group vice president of Platforms.
[MORE]
(Excerpt) Read more at internetnews.com ...
I guess the remedy depends on if there is actual proof...
OK, I just read the rest of the article. My Mail File actually sits on a coprporate network server, which is backed up by tape in the usual manner... I've never seen a directive from OTG saying we can't.
The article neglects to mention who the second company
suing MS is. I presume it's Novell. Groklaw has their
complaint as HTML here:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041115214025458
RealNetworks
None. Many companies have 30-45 day auto-delete cycles for email.
This makes deletions a much easier process.
And why, after the forged "Remove IE from Windows" video during the anti-trust trial, is anyone at all surprised that this kind of behavior happens at Microsoft?
This makes deletions a much easier process.
And why, after the forged "Remove IE from Windows" video during the anti-trust trial, is anyone at all surprised that this kind of behavior happens at Microsoft?
My apologies.
from the OED-
Spoliation-
3. Law. The action of destroying a document, or of injuring or tampering with it in such a way as to destroy its value as evidence.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act requires a much more strict policy for company officers.
I'm actually speaking about AT Microsoft - My pst file isn't local...
Do you mean Board members and directors? I'm an officer for a very large company, I don't have a personal e-mail server..
Did I miss the memo?
Microsoft has been in trouble before for this kind of thing.
Once might be an oversight. Twice is deliberate.
If your IT department doesn't have a seperate mail server for company officers that's okay, provided that they have some method of archiving and moving data off of the server and retaining it.
I'll admit that I'm a bit fuzzy on the specifics but, if memory serves, I think that for department heads and higher the retention is 10 years.
If anyone has the specifics handy I'd appreciate you posting it, otherwise I'll go digging into the statutes when I get some time later tonight.
The definition you offer requires not just the destruction of documents, but also the intention to destroy evidence. Where is your evidence that it was done to "destroy its value as evidence", rather than part of general house cleaning?
--Boot Hill
from the article-
"Microsoft has a great criminal business model: They steal technology as fast as they can, and in the end, only a small percentage of the companies they steal from can get it together to come after them," Lang said. Even after settling or paying damages, he said, "The money they have to part with at the end of the day is an infinitesimal percentage of the value of what they've stolen."
Fortunately, this situation doesn't require that.
Messages between company officers have a legal requirement for a specific retention period. Documents that were within this period have been deleted while other documents were not. If this was an accidental clean-up based on the age of the documents all of the documents of the time period would be gone.
Since that is not the case, the judge can direct that the deletion of the documents are prima facie evidence that the documents contained materials and information that supports the petitioner's case.
To sum up...Microsoft has been involved in hundreds of lawsuits, and many of those lawsuits required them to produce email and internal documents as evidence. The deletion of documents in contradiction of the law is a major booboo for Microsoft. They know better, they allowed it to happen and this will count against them in the trial. It matters not one bit whether the deleted documents contained information on the Burst case. It matters that they deleted documents that might be evidence.
It's kind of like the Clinton mess. He lied under oath and was impeached for that. The subject of the lie is immaterial. The left likes to make a big deal out of the fact that the lie was about sex, but it really doesn't matter. He lied under oath. It could have been about national security, energy policy or the name of his first cat and the result of lying about it would have been the same.
And Microsoft has a history of falsifying evidence already.
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