Google settles with Uncle Sam over data that vanished during cryptocurrency biz probe

After six years of wrangling, the US Department of Justice and Google have reached an agreement to resolve a dispute over the ad giant's inability to turn over records requested in a warrant. The problem? That data was lost before the case could be settled.  Homeland Security obtained the search warrant in 2016 for an …

[Anonymous Coward]

For those concerned this will open up a flood of data to the US government, the DoJ said not to worry, either: "Google will maintain its lawful protections of user data, and the agreement does not provide the United States access to Google user data."

Funny how the DoJ is speaking words through Google's mouth. But hey...not to worry.

Is the long running joke that Google is anything but a USA spy tool over... can we finally replace google.com with nsa.gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right? Like, has the entire planet forgotten about the Snowden revelations about PRISM? It's not like it was shut down.

[jake]

"That data was lost before the case could be settled."

Alpha Goo has never lost any data. Keeping data is what they do.

It is especially not "deletable by a user", not even an internal one.

Check the carefully curated off-site backups (in duplicate, or more). You'll find it.

This is true of all the data gathering companies. If they claim it's gone, for any reason, they are lying.

_{The opinions expressed above are those of the author & etc.}

[Dinanziame]

Re: "That data was lost before the case could be settled."

There are also laws which force companies to delete user data on request, even the offsite backups. Even write-only cold storage is "deleted", by deleting the cryptographic key:

https://cloud.google.com/docs/security/deletion

[jake]

Re: "That data was lost before the case could be settled."

Since when did mere laws apply to multi-billion dollar international advertising companies?

[Dinanziame]

Re: "That data was lost before the case could be settled."

Since they pay multi-billion dollar fines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "That data was lost before the case could be settled."

Oh, do they actually pay them anywhere?

We generally see the fines imposed, then a series of appeals dribbling off into silence. I assumed the legal bills are the only actual punishment in the end.

[jake]

Re: "That data was lost before the case could be settled."

They pay?

News to me.

_{Even if they did, it'd just be part of the cost of doing business.}

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: "That data was lost before the case could be settled."

The warrant was a court order to submit the data in question to the court, so that the court can decide for itself what laws, if any, apply to its status as evidence and its content.

Google's response to the warrant is "The dog ate my homework."

[Neil Barnes]

Google lost data?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I say!