!!! As I mentioned last week, ND Cal court ordered unsealing of motion to compel Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg for discovery in their cover-up of Cambridge Analytica which broke wide open March 2018. Yellow was just unsealed - compare to Zuckerberg's testimony to @AOC. /1
This matters as it's long been expected much of Zuckerberg's messages on the matter happened directly with Sandberg or offline. It's an entirely rational practice to keep the CEO off the messy emails. Hence the need for discovery and depositions of Zuckerberg and Sandberg. /2
Meanwhile, Facebook:
- paid $5B to FTC to avoid depositions of leadership;
- negotiated questions off-limits the one time Sandberg testified;
- denied and deflected Parliaments attempts to get answers;
- so far, has avoided discovery and depositions of leadership by AG of DC. /3
Speaking of Sandberg, there is one bit that was unsealed next to a number of redactions left in place. The filing indicates that her files demonstrate that Cambridge Analytica was "merely the tip of the iceberg" which has always been the point of the case and cover-up. /4
This section was left sealed as Facebook claimed it was "confidential communication with consultants." Must be nice having that sort of latitude to avoid embarrassment who helped you with your cover-up. /5
More here in yellow, this just further confirms Sheryl Sandberg's role and importance of these lawsuits continuing to proceed forward in depositions and discovery. A reminder we also just learned there is a sealed transcript of a deposition of Mark Zuckerberg by the SEC. /6
If you want to review the full thread on the cover-up, I put it together last March as a reference to the inconsistencies and deflections in what should have been simple questions and answers at a time when Facebook promised it would come clean. /7
There were three other motions unsealed in the process (and a number of items left redacted per a last minute request by Facebook). This includes a motion regarding Facebook's APIs, their "business partners" and a still delayed look at their promised audit post-Cambridge. /8
There are a few companies left redacted. You can kind of figure out why later on in this breakdown. It looks like the car companies remain sealed as Facebook argued it could hurt their business relationships if the public knew they had much of our data. /10
Side note, there are a bunch of sentences unsealed that just confirm the obvious that Facebook has/had data partners and they're called "data brokers" and allegedly they both sent and received data from Facebook which is embarrassing for them as they don't "sell" your data. /11
Any engineer or business exec in the data or cloud industry would probably find the unsealed motion regarding APIs to be interesting. It includes some costs, massive data sizes, times, tables to restore from cold to warm, et al. And random things like this in yellow. Yikes. /12
Circling back to this first tweet. The answer to the email could have been: Mark, they laundered tens of millions of our records and used it to help elect Donald Trump including to microtarget suppression ads in key districts and we helped them do it. /13
Justice takes time. What he knew when. AOC will remember this, “Their lawsuit says Zuckerberg—facing the risk of personal liability over the data privacy scandal—got himself out of trouble by agreeing to pay a larger-than-necessary $5 billion fine with shareholder money.” 1/3
Here is the full report from Bloomberg on Zuckerberg’s deposition which apparently was cut short and late on docs on Dec 3rd. Board members Thiel, Andreessen, others all being deposed these weeks. Press allowed Facebook to rewrite history on this. 2/3 news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-p…
Here is a good thread that will get you into the details. Sheryl Sandberg also deposed although her assumed prior SEC deposition was sealed. We did finally get Zuckerberg’s which showed his nerves and that the scandal was on his mind much earlier. Thanks to @zamaan_qureshi 3/3
Overnight: FTC plans to call CEO Zuckerberg and (former) CTO Schroepfer in first 2 wks of trial (late April) in DC seeking to break up the company for abuse of monopoly laws. Also on their short list are some very big roles and names. Very likely driving behaviors at the top. /1
As I know their roles...
Chris Cox - chief product officer who took a break when scandals accelerated, and avoided testimony in UK.
Javier Olivan - now COO, key lieutenant
Sheryl Sandberg - former COO, on everything
Alex Schultz - key growth hacker, now CMO /2
Adam Mosseri - key lieutenant, now runs Insta
Dave Wehner - former CFO, deal approval including $19B with no real revenue WhatsApp
Fidji Simo - (former) always in mix, product leadership
Guy Rosen - Onavo alleged packet sniffing of WhatsApp, Snap /3
Woah. Google filed redacted versions of its Summary Judgment exhibits in Texas adtech antitrust case ahead of the March 31 trial. Although this case mirrors DOJ's case awaiting decision, it has even more eye-popping evidence. And an expert suggesting $29B in penalties. /1
"Project Bernanke" is an oldie but goodie that gets a lot of discussion. ICYMI, Google would allegedly increase the first highest and the second highest bid in its 2nd-price auctions then reinvest the "saved" funds back into other bids to Google wins more auctions. /2
The problem is while it may have ended up providing more revenue to the publisher (from/through Google) and no doubt to Google, Inc, it allegedly ignored the revenue which could have come through another channel if Google didn't manipulate the rev share as it ran the auctions. /3
US v Google II Closing arguments today.
70min for DOJ-> 95min for Google-> 20min for DOJ. Having predicted this case as better odds than search case (Google already lost in August), nothing changed my mind today. I wrote down: influence/$, complexity, deception, and arrogance. /1
I'm staying high level on perception first as findings of fact already covered much. On influence/$, DOJ pointed out early on and then again in rebuttal that every single witness presented by Google (except one) was paid or had grants from Google. /2
On complexity, Google again executed on its spaghetti defense with lead counsel, Karen Dunn, bookending trial by running over as she did in her opening. She appeared to skip dozens of slides, many minutes of close. And she loaded her slides while talking twice as fast as DOJ! /3
Bam. There is it. US Department of Justice has filed - requesting divestiture of Chrome as a remedy for court's finding against Google. Android at risk, too. /1
As it relates to Android, here is how DOJ puts it. Forced divestiture is option that "swiftly, efficiently, and decisively strikes at the locus of some anticompetitive conduct at issue here" but we're ok with tight behavioral remedies with option to divest if they don't work. /2
Revenue sharing for search default and/or preferential treatment - dead. Google's tens of billions to Apple - dead (last I saw it's about 15% of Apple's profits). Reminder, this all needs to be argued and approved by Court and then will get appealed. Still far off. /3
KA-BOOM. So when Google and its proxies (see so-called Chamber of Progress), friendly academics and analysts continue to suggest Chrome has nothing to do with the case, please ask them how many days they were at the trial. 1/3
This is super important. It’s an area @DCNorg (premium publishers) are intensely interested and concerned they get right around ability to restrict. The Court and trial made it clear they understood its importance during trial. We’ll be reading closely on Wednesday. 2/3
Here is the full report from Bloomberg who consistent with the entire trial showed up every day, did the hard work, and now got the massive scoop ahead of Wed filing. 3/3 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…