macnn
11/22/2008, 12:00am, EST
Saturday, November 22nd
Apple may see fines over poor data archives
The latest development in the Apple-Psystar case may potentially see Apple stumbling over potential fines, as a recent filing shows that the company does not practice common document and email archiving etiquette. The Industry Standard reports that Apple maintains no company standard for email and document retention, a practice that can lead to millions of dollars in fines when adequate documentation is not found, when called upon in support of courtroom proceedings.
An anonymous lawyer, working for an allegedly prevalent firm, said that Apple's policy for data retention is "negligent," because of a lack of due process. Apple hopes to counter the claim by stating that retention policies were in check, as relevant personnel were notified of the impending requirement of documents pertinent to the Psystar case.
Judge William Alsup recently put a tentative dismissal on Psystar's anti-trust countersuit, but the discovery could harm Apple, as it is presently enduing several other legal hassles.
Filed under: industry, Apple
Other story tags: lawsuit, Psystar
, 
, 17
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
Top
subscribe to comments
for this article
I find this hard
I find this hard to believe since Apple has been in many court battles, without this issue ever coming up. If they have no records or documentation they would not be able to even go to court. More FUD in my opinion.
Pystar's Desperate
I can not believe our court system.
even harder to believe
So, because I'm a business, I have to follow common email filing practices, just in case someone wants to screw me over? This I find hard to believe. Maybe it's a CA thing, but if state of federal laws can require you to operate you business down to your filing system, this just isn't the real America.
Hands off!
someone
Scammed Electronista. This is completely false and concocted. Once again, demonstrating the high research value of online journalism. Idiots, check your sources. Especially in light of potential lawsuits that could arise, particularly in the area of stock manipulation.
not hard to believe
Welcome to the new world of federal e-discovery rules. It's been a huge issue with corporate IT groups for the last few years. You really do have to set up and enforce document retention policies at your workplace to prevent possible fines in the case of a lawsuit. Having said that, if Apple gets fined on this their IT and/or legal guys have been asleep at the wheel.
lol macnn....
"An anonymous lawyer, working for an allegedly prevalent firm"
doubt it's true
I work for a major defense contractor and within the last year, a new email policy was established. Archiving is not allowed. Any email in the inbox older than 30 days gets deleted. Any email saved to a folder gets deleted after a year.
It seems doubtful that there could be law requiring companies to archive email given the policy at our company.
holy cats
(burying face in hands) part of the SEC rules that govern publicly traded companies, you idiots.
it's true
I guess you have never heard of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It was created after the corporate scandals like Enron. It requires large corporations to archive all their email to protect the stockholders in case there is fraud. There are companies in my town that do this and this includes all junk mail. No mail is deleted from the archives.
But hey, what's a few million dollar fine when you have $25 billion and you can screw anyone that is wanting discovery.
Re: doubt its true
Archiving is not allowed. Any email in the inbox older than 30 days gets deleted. Any email saved to a folder gets deleted after a year.
Um, email retention policies are usually not left to the individual, but on a system-wide basis. Ergo, it doesn't matter what they do to your mailboxes on your computers or the server, as they can still have all your email stored somewhere.
And they probably did this so (a) you can't take secrets with you, and (b) employees aren't saving ALL their email, thus clogging up space on the mail servers.