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Intel deleted court ordered emails
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 7th March 2007
"The dog ate my email" - Intel had better come up with a good reason why it can't find court-ordered emails.
In a briefing from AMD about the suit, the company's lawyers mentioned that Intel apparently "misplaced" some rather important (i.e. incriminating) emails and other documents related to the case. These documents had been court-ordered to be preserved, as they were part of the evidence behind the lawsuit. Apparently, somewhere amidst all the commotion, Intel forgot to send notices to over 400 employees involved and request that they archive their mail. Oops.
Of course, AMD does not go so far as to say that it happened maliciously. Instead, the company blames bad communication, poor oversight, and complete data-retention incompetence. "Though all the facts are not in, potentially massive amounts of e-mail correspondence generated and received by Intel executives and employees since the filing of the lawsuit may be irretrievably lost, as may other relevant electronic documents," the company said in its briefing.
Intel has acknowledged that it may not have been as fastidious in its data retention as it had outlined that it would be in July of 2005 (when the court demanded the data be held), and has largely blamed the issue on "simple mistakes" and "human error." Basically, when you're a huge, multi-national corporation responsible for a tremendous amount of the world's digital infrastructure, some things just get lost. Terrific document retention and control policies, here we come.
Though it failed to notify some very key (who just ended up unnotified absolutely at random, of course) employees whatsoever, it "over-notified" others who weren't even on the list, and promised that these new people "continue to be a potential source of documents if necessary." Not the documents that pertain to the case, but who's worried about that?
Somehow, I doubt that will be of any consolation to AMD's lawyers, who may have a pretty big fight on their hands. Intel's lawyers are, of course, incredibly apologetic for the incident. In the meantime, The Inquirer's very own Spinola Offsite Data Storage (SODS) has a copy that people can use to read some of the lost mail, if you're interested. (note: this very last bit is a joke, please don't yell at us or The Inq...but come on, it's funny - Ed.)
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Comments (17)Stats: 0.218 seconds
i mean what happens if a police officer accidentally shreds a piece of evidence ... i assume not very good things, and the same thing should happen to intel
Its nice to know all those joke emails that go round Intel do get deleted eventually though, instead of being logged for all eternity :p
(note: i do not know if Intel actually has joke emails going round, although id be surprised if they didn't)
Intel, naughty naughty, a company that big and they can't even find a few deleted files.
If they accidently deleted a part of a CPU core design i bet they could find it again pretty quick!!!
It must be company policy to delete unwanted emails via the method of large magnet to HDD's!!! lol
Basically forcing clients to buy Intel.
That still going on! Thats been going for years! Since the days of old school SKT A Athlons!!!
Still got my xp-m, clocked to the nuts, yes i need all of that to use winamp! lol
Fine and reprimand vs GIANT fine (loosing the case), not a difficult choice really (laws be dammed)
:(
I see this too and it bugs me to no end. I started seeing people replace lose with loose about 2-3 years ago, and every year it gets worse. Can't figure out why there's only a handful of people that remember loose is a term used to make fun of someone's mom and lose is what happens when you gamble in Vegas.
however, i suspect the story is more likely to go by with him putting a large magnet near it, or using the bit in the drive where your meant to put a pin or whatever to destroy the data
It is obviously completely inconceivable that any large company would intentionally destroy sensitive documentation, especially in circumstances where the penalty for nondisclosure is less severe than the possible penalties resulting from disclosure. Large companies are not, in any way, the corporate equivalent of what in a human being would be called an incorrigibly greedy psychopath. It's not that global outfits like Intel, AMD, Microsoft, et. al. have no concept of "enough" or "moderation"; they're actually run by perfectly lovely people, probably the sort who serve soup to homeless people on the weekends.
In short, big companies are not lying, cheating, law-flouting piss-takers who'll sequester anything they can get their glue-coated, grasping fingers on.
Oh no. Hang on.
P