Comment by prepend
4 years ago
I suppose it’s defensive behavior. If they admit their mistake now then they could potentially be liable for the damages caused by their mistake years ago. Now any lawsuit would need to determine if there was an error and harm instead of just quantifying the harm.
I’d like to contribute to a crowdsource fund to prosecute cases like this.
When I was a kid the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund [0] was set up to pay for lawyers to defend comic book stores that were being targeted by over eager police departments and civil suits.
Maybe something like the Google is an Asshole Legal Defense Fund could collect donations. The article mentions $7000 as the cost to prosecute this persons case. Crowdsourcing can help with that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Legal_Defense_Fund
I am not saying it is right, but to a large degree this is the cost that some of us 'pay' for millions having 'free' Gmail/GDrive etc. Fully automated processes that close accounts, no due process to get them timely reinstated when the machine made an error. You are correct, if they admit a mistake here, it will open the doors to lots of claims. I sometimes think they could a lot of people to pay for the service (with $ not just having their digital lives being harvested) if they knew to be treated better when something like this happens.
The question everyone needs to ask themselves, if Google closed your account right now, for good - what would that do to your life...
7000$ is a pitance. Maybe this case is simple, but many will not be. Say they raid a house and confiscate a hard drive. Encrypted or not, that is going to be a huge thing. Arguments will be made about whether anything incriminating was stored on that drive. Just google the cost of a forensic expert witness. Both sides will need one.
Such costs are actually why so many police agencies are backing off of CP investigations. They still prosecute where evidence is clear, such as when someone emails such material openly, but they arent willing to invest the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary to handle the complex cases involving encrypted communication/storage. 7000$ would be a bare minimum for only the simplest of legal defenses in the simplest of cases.
The reference to $7k isn’t to prosecute a CP case, it was to sue google to reinstate his account so he could get his digital life back.
Which to be fair, the guy lives in San Francisco. It isn't that hard to file a small claims case. I understand that there may be some legal nuisances involved, but just getting the attention of the legal review team that will have to show up to defend the case is usually enough to get them to evaluate a matter beyond the algorithms. I don't think it is fair, but is much quicker and cheaper $7,000.
4 replies →
He could probably find a lawyer willing to take the case on contingency. A jury might decide that he deserves millions in punitive damages and courts are probably the only way to force a human at google to provide support.
Which would involve defending his case. The defense's budget has to be in 5he same league as the prosecution.
2 replies →
This is a civil case—not criminal. The father would be suing Google, not the government suing the father for a crime.
This one is. A legal fund cannot be aimed just at the most simple cases.
Lucky for many to consider $7k a pittance. Probably a pittance to most HN participants, but certainly not for everyone.