How key Microsoft legal emails 'autodestruct'

[James A. Donald]

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On 12 Oct 2004 at 11:28, R.A. Hettinga wrote:
> The latest court documents to be unsealed by Judge Frederick
> Motz in Burst.com's suit against Microsoft paint a picture of
> Microsoft document handling procedures which destroyed the
> very emails that were likely to be most relevant to several
> antitrust actions, Burst's included. According to Burst's
> lawyers Microsoft's status as "a defendant in major antitrust
> cases since at least 1995" means that it has a duty to
> preserve potentially relevant evidence. But "Microsoft 
> adopted policies that, to put it mildly, encouraged document 
> destruction from 1995 forward."

Reflect on all the people and businesses that got into legal
trouble by keeping documents.

Now reflect on all the peole and business that got into legal
trouble by destroying documents.

Clearly it is better to be charged for destroying documents,
than charged for what is in those documents.

> But if Microsoft does have a policy to diligently retain
> relevant documents, well, it clearly needs to write a new
> policy that works instead.

Any law that requires people to be diligent and competent in
making a noose and placing it on their own necks, is likely to
encounter truly amazing levels of incompetence.  I lose
documents I actually *want* to retain often enough.


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         James A. Donald
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