[dodobirdlord]

> Companies could set up internal chat solutions where conversations aren't logged.

No, transient storage of chat records has specifically been categorized as unacceptable in exactly these ongoing Google litigations.

[professoretc]

It's only an issue in the current Google litigation because Google's current chat solution apparently has an option to enable logging for everybody. If you have an internal chat app that never logs messages -- say, the sender looks up the recipient's IP address on the VPN and connects to them directly -- then a court can't order you to write new code to enable logging. But if your chat app has a big master "log all messages" switch, a court can order you to turn it on.

[dodobirdlord]

> If you have an internal chat app that never logs messages -- say, the sender looks up the recipient's IP address on the VPN and connects to them directly -- then a court can't order you to write new code to enable logging.

No, they absolutely can. You may be confusing this with various first amendment cases about compelled speech, given the focus on a court ordering code authorship. A regulator does not have to concern themselves with the mechanism of storage, they can simply designate communications as requiring storage. And they have done so in the case of electronic transmissions. The relevant law allows regulators to compel retention of written communications. Storing a communication in memory and sending it over the network to the memory of another computer for display is by itself sufficient to qualify as a written communication.