“Apple has sold enterprise-class storage hardware and software for years, but the company has yet to embrace systematic email and document retention policies that are common among publicly traded companies,” Jordan Golson reports for The Industry Standard.
“According to a recent legal filing (see page 7) in the Psystar vs Apple antitrust case, Apple employees are responsible for maintaining their own documents such as emails, memos, and voicemails. In other words, there is no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting these documents,” Golson reports.
“This could pose a problem in the event of a lawsuit. In recent years, companies have been fined millions after failing to retrieve old emails and other files required as evidence. The fear of fines and other legal sanctions has resulted in many companies instituting strict “e-discovery” retention policies, and has helped give rise to a new class of enterprise-class storage and indexing tools,” Golson reports.
Golson reports, “However, Apple claims in the Psystar document that its policy is fine because once the company anticipated litigation: [Apple] identified a group of employees who could potentially have documents relevant to the issues reasonably evident in this action. Apple then provided those individuals with a document retention notice which included a request for the retention of any relevant documents.“
Golson reports, “Psystar’s antitrust claim has been dismissed, but Apple is currently involved in many other cases. Apple’s weak e-discovery practices could very well come back to haunt the company.”
Full article here.
More government reg’s meant to intrude on private business.
This is not as much of an issues as everyone makes out like it is.
In must cases it’s and excuse to the judge to give the opponent (the one doing the complaining because they have a weaker or no case) extra latitude and excuse for possible appeal later.
Who does Apple think they are, the Bush administration?
Deleted emails tell no tales.
ayre! make Psystar walk da plank!
No more matte screen computers from Apple…
*cries*
Bla, bla bla. Bullshit. Wonder how much these hitwhores get paid for writing this shit.
Comment from: Mac Man by Choice
“”””More government reg’s meant to intrude on private business.””””
Not a private business, they are a publicly held company and that makes all the difference.
The Standard. “If litigation is anticipated, the party has a duty to preserve potentially relevant documents.”
If litigation is not anticipated then the party has no duty to preserve anything. How could Apple or any company Anticipate any potential litigation.
The fines that some companies were changed was for stuff that was deleted after the notice of litigation.
The rule and company policy is to delete and purge everything everyday. Until there is a notice for litigation then every things is saved.
Email retention is a double edged sword. Keeping them may or may not be in the best interest of the company. Where I work each individual retains and classifies email by topic. We delete them when the topic is completed, unless of course a notice of litigation arrives first. As an Apple stockholder I’m comfortable with their policy. A retained email could just as easily hurt them as help them. When in Doubt – Toss it Out
Funny. I know a bunch of companies who delete emails just to AVOID litigation.
Well, Apple must use Mobile Me to retain (or not) their email.
there is no requirement for general email retention except for governmental agencies…state, local, feds
publicly traded is not the same as public agency….try doing a non-litigant public records request sometime against any company…and listen to the laughter
once the litigation is started or anticipated….whole different ballgame
There are a million ways to get organized. all plans stand or fall on it’s own merits and quite frankly, I haven’t seen a plan in action for e-discovery that’s worth a tinker’s damn.
Again, here is a call to increase the size of government.
The only one questioning Apple’s policies are Golson, of the Standard Beta whose ready to break out in song if it will remove the stench of beta from their name.
e-discovery is breaking out too soon. It’s wrong to drag people into court to defend themselves against a system for which there is no standard operating procedure.
If the Feds insist, we have a right to scream States Rights.
And which state does it best, anyway? If you’re looking for clever and innovative then California’s the best. Look East if you want to see of clash of ol’ time values and e-discovery!
@Mac Man by Choice,
What does the government have to do with this? It’s one private company with its private lawyers suing another private company with its private lawyers.
Oh, I get it. You’re one of those “I hate the government and will slam it at every opportunity even when it doesn’t make any sense” guys.
Give it a rest.
@JohnLee
what the government has to do with it is that they make laws, and appoint lawmakers. Corporations don’t make laws yet.
Apple can afford fines. Probably less expensive move anyhow than a global policy….
As long as they’re not doing Gov/DoD. work they’re not required to have a retention policy.
My last employer was a Gov contractor, keeping an email after the project is done is a no-no also.
The sad thing is that the Judge wasn’t ware of this.
Actually, the Judge probably was, the lawyers and press are just trying to cause doubt. I’m pretty sure Apple’s lawyers are quite adept at the law.
Corporations don’t make laws yet.
Oh yes they do! And 80 percent of you cube-rats live with those restrictions.
Dress codes, humanities, golden-flow-disclosure, security, blah blah blah… you sign off on reams of the stuff each week and you don’t know why.
You are the grist to what is the actuary table generator. The yeast that gives rise to the gingerbread models of scientific and religious triumph and government cheese.
Who is better positioned to extrapolate the best practices from so many choices of sop?
Congress, private enterprise, world court of opinion, academia?
We need to get off this moronic roller-coaster-notion that Justice is damage litigated!
Does Apple have any Yahoo accounts?
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Actually, Apple should get its act together… as this goes beyond the Psystar case.
Deleted emails tell no tales.
Unfortunately, deleted mails also count as “intentionally destroyed evidence” to a creative plaintiff.
I would say Apple’s best option is to archive everything. And I mean everything. Even outside spam.
When a plaintiff requests emails, turn the entire archive over and let THEM sort it out!
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Them more government gets involved in anything the more screwed up it is. Just wait until these libs in charge grow the US gov to an obscene size. This is going to be a huge mess and is not what the US was founded on. No more free handouts! Businesses or lazy welfare abusers.
The “libs” in charge, where? Demorats are corporatists, just like their co-conspirators, the Repukes. In case you haven’t noticed the US Gov. has ballooned & gone bankrupt under the last 8 years of Repukian rule.
@JohnLee:
You’re late for the Sarah Palin rally.
And how does he know what Apple has or doesn’t have in there mail servers or mail server backups or how long they keep them?
I find this story to smell of FUD not facts.
Further more, Apple has been in many legal disputes recently, and there has been no evidence that proves that Apple doesn’t have backup copies of email that they can or can’t pull from if it is legally necessary. I find this story to be more fantasy then truth to try and sway the facts once more.
However the fact remains that Psystar broke many copyright laws and without permission started making and selling clones with Apple compatible on them which in itself is illegal without Apple’s permission or license. Plus hacking OSX to make it work on these cheap PC boxes of crap besides. Then to have the gall to start selling Apple’s OSX server software with a cheap PC box they call a server as well. I don’t see how anyone could side with these criminals.