Comment by vorpalhex

The reason why we have a human court system is that Judges don't have to be naive readers. The justice system doesn't do the:

"Oh darn! You got me in a technicality! Not recording isn't the same as deleting!"

Instead the judge is going to ask if it was obvious the information was required to be preserved and if it was, then why Google did not preserve it.

"Ah but there was nothing to preserve because..." is not a clever retort, it's a fast track to a contempt charge.

If you are under a hold, you are under a hold.