Psystar Case Reveals Poor Email Archiving At Apple

Ian Lamont writes "Buried in the court filings of the recently concluded Psystar antitrust suit against Apple is a document that discussed Apple's corporate policy regarding employee email. Apparently, Apple has no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting email. This could potentially run afoul of e-discovery requirements, which have tripped up other companies that have been unable to produce emails and other electronic files in court. A lawyer quoted in the article (but not involved in the case) called Apple's retention policy 'negligent.' However, the issue did not help Psystar's lawsuit against Apple — a judge dismissed the case earlier this week."

Comments

If Litigation is required.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

From TFA:

...the basic legal requirements surrounding email and document retention to The Standard. "If litigation is anticipated, the party has a duty to preserve potentially relevant documents"

The thing here is that litigation is always anticipated at Apple - if they're not currently suing someone, its because they're getting ready to sue. (or the legal team are on holiday [legal team pictured on the right hand side of that photo])

The other point worth noting here is that an electronic document retention policy is only a good thing to have if you're confident your employees are acting ethically (or at least unaware of any breaches).

Retention policy?

[girlintraining]

Retention policy is simple: Delete anything that shows it's your fault. Save anything that shows it's somebody else's fault. Forward anything that makes your boss look good. If you're asked for copies of anything give them something that looks similar but isn't it. If you're called into court, you have a bad memory unless your lawyer says you don't. And under no circumstances should you ever, ever






.

Time Machine?

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

Man, if only Apple had access to some sort of technology that would automatically back up their emails. Something that indexed the back-ups too. Something that Just Works.

Re:in the year 2000

[lysergic.acid]

::HackintoshDood signs in to Myspace::
MySpace: you received a friend request from AplLawyrBabe81
::looks at profile pic::
HackintoshDood: sweet, she looks pretty hot.
::approves friend request::
MySpace: you have a chat request from AplLawyrBabe81.
HackintoshDood: awesome!
::clicks::
AplLawyrBabe81: a/s/l?
HackintoshDood: 21/m/san jose, u?
AplLawyrBabe81: kekeke
HackintoshDood: i rly like ur pics. you're hot. ;-)
AplLawyrBabe81: kekeke, thanks. ;-)
AplLawyrBabe81: ur profile says u r Matt Anderson. is that rly ur name?
HackintoshDood: yep, that's me =P
AplLawyrBabe81: oh, good. then consider yourself served.
AplLawyrBabe81: ur being sued by Apple for copyright infringement.
AplLawyrBabe81: c u in court. k bye!

I double dog dare you...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ok, I propose the following: We take up a collection to establish a prize pool to be paid to the (estate of) the first person to approach Steve Jobs and, with a completely straight face, suggest that he "Really ought to consider an enterprise grade hosted-Exchange Solution; since, after all, Exchange and Microsoft Workgroup Technologies(tm) are the heart of the dynamic enterprise."

Just remember, Steve has eye lasers, and they are powered by pure disgust.