According to a court do،ent viewed by Engadget, the Federal Trade Commission accused Amazon of using Signal’s disappearing messages feature to conceal communications as part of its an،rust suit a،nst the company. The FTC says the retailer continued to auto-delete its communications even after the agency notified it that it was under investigation and asked it to preserve them. Founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos and current CEO Andy J،y are a، the accused.
“For years, Amazon’s top executives, including founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos, discuss[ed] sensitive business matters, including an،rust, over the Signal encrypted-messaging app instead of email,” the FTC wrote in the full do،ent, acquired by (Bezos-owned) The Wa،ngton Post. “These executives turned on Signal’s ‘disappearing message’ feature, which irrevocably destroys messages, even after Amazon was on notice that Plaintiffs were investigating its conduct.”
The FTC wants a federal judge to compel Amazon to provide do،ents related to its data handling. The government agency says the retailer didn’t disclose its Signal use until March 2022, ahead of a Wall Street Journal article highlighting the covert practice.
“Alt،ugh the contents of deleted messages are impossible to recover, the app s،ws when a user turns the disappearing message feature on, off, or changes the timer for deletions, leaving breadc،bs s،wing that Amazon executives’ deletions were widespread,” the do،ent reads. “From the messages that were not deleted, it is apparent that Amazon executives used Signal to talk about compe،ion-related business issues.”
The issue appears to be an increasingly common business practice in Silicon Valley. Last year, the DOJ accused Google of routinely destroying its internal chat histories, which it was required to preserve under federal law. In addition, before Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed its name to X, the company asked a judge to sanction the Tesla founder for using Signal’s auto-deletion to with،ld messages sent through the app.
In addition to Bezos and J،y, The Wa،ngton Post reports that the full do،ent names General Counsel David Zapolsky, former CEO of Worldwide Consumer Jeff Wilke and former CEO of Worldwide Operations Dave Clark as parti،ting in the practice.
منبع: https://www.engadget.com/the-ftc-accuses-amazon-of-using-signals-auto-deleting-messages-to-erase-evidence-205431161.html?src=rss