Comment by pyrophane

Wondering if anyone here has a good answer to this:

what protection does user data typically have during legal discovery in a civil suit like this where the defendant is a service provider but relevant evidence is likely present in user data?

Does a judge have to weigh a users' expectation of privacy against the request? Do terms of service come into play here (who actually owns the data? what privacy guarantees does the company make?).

I'm assuming in this case that the request itself isn't overly broad and seems like a legitimate use of the discovery process.