Google Ordered To Hand Over Emails in $600 Million Divorce Battle

A US court has ordered Google to hand over the personal emails of the son of a Russian oligarch as part of a bitter $601 million divorce case. From a report [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]: Judge Virginia DeMarchi in California told the US tech group to surrender Temur Akhmedov's emails for use as evidence in a lawsuit brought by his mother, Tatiana Akhmedova, the wife of an ally of President Vladimir Putin. Ms Akhmedova has gone to court in the US and the UK in an attempt to force her ex-husband, Farkhad Akhmedov, to pay the world's largest-ever divorce settlement. Google said the order was a breach of its customer's privacy. The divorce case, which is being funded by litigation financier Burford Capital, has led to a legal battle over assets including a helicopter, a private jet and a superyacht called the Luna that used to belong to Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich. Google sought to block the order to give up the emails this week on the basis that to do so would infringe Mr Akhmedov's right to privacy because he had not given consent to share them. Ms DeMarchi said Google's concern for the "privacy and security of its account holders' communications" was "commendable" but ruled the request did not breach the US Stored Communications Act, which governs voluntary and compelled disclosure of emails. The information from the emails will be used to learn whether Temur assisted his father in the fraudulent transfer of assets, and if so, to win a judgment against him, Tatiana Akhmedova said in a filing.

Filing?

[DesertNomad]

"The information from the emails will be used to learn whether Temur assisted his father in the fraudulent transfer of assets, and if so, to win a judgment against him, Tatiana Akhmedova said in a filing."

I thought that's what Tweets were for...

Not the largest divorce settlement

[ShanghaiBill]

$600M is nowhere near the world's "largest-ever" divorce settlement.

MacKenzie Bezos got $35B, nearly sixty times that amount.

Re:

[dskoll]

And that one was amicable, I believe.

Re: Not the largest divorce settlement

[ArmoredDragon]

She just didn't like being married to a Talosian.

Re:

[burni2]

Yeah, 35 x 10^9 reasons to have marriage contract.

Re:

[dskoll]

I think you mean a prenuptial agreement. That might not have made a difference in Bezos' case; if the terms of a prenup are considered unconscionable, it can be invalidated. And I think any prenup that gave all of the billions Bezos made after he was married and none to his ex would have been considered unconscionable.

Re:

[junglee_iitk]

It would have been but should not be and all efforts made to make it so.

Re:Not the largest divorce settlement

[tlhIngan]

I think you mean a prenuptial agreement. That might not have made a difference in Bezos' case; if the terms of a prenup are considered unconscionable, it can be invalidated. And I think any prenup that gave all of the billions Bezos made after he was married and none to his ex would have been considered unconscionable.

Exactly. A pre-nup is just that - an agreement prior to nuptuals (i.e., marriage). Pre-nups are good because they prevent someone from marrying you just for your money - they marry, consummate, divorce and get half your stuff (consummation can be an important point because it's often required to avoid an annulment)

An annulment is a cancellation - getting one means the marriage didn't happen and no settlement occurs - it's as if the marriage didn't happen.

Prenups aren't forever, either, they generally last about 5 years after which it's generally considered long enough that any gold digging would've happened. After that the courts can generally decide in the case of messy ownership what happens.

And pre-nups don't generally cover assets gained or owned or appreciated after marriage, so those assets are split.

Re:

[tokengeekgrrl]

Not sure how a prenup is relevant given that she married Bezos in 1993 and Amazon didn't exist until 1994.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

yep, I doubt it would even make it to the top 10.

Re:

[hey!]

Technically a settlement is an agreement that results in a voluntary withdrawal of a suit, right?

So if it goes to the bitter end, this could well be the largest amount awarded by a court.

Re:

[dcw3]

Three's still a settlement in an amicable divorce, which has to be court approved. I speak from personal experience.

Re:

[Hey_Jude_Jesus]

I can't wait to see the divorce costs for Bill & Melinda Gates.

Re:

[cusco]

If that were to happen (and I really can't imagine it) they'd probably both take a billion dollars and dump the rest into the Foundation.

Re:

[ILongForDarkness]

Does remind me of the quip Rogan brings up a lot though.Something to the effect what he screwed you so good he broke you and now you can no longer work? I get giving settlements to get people back on their feet and get started out while they get back into the workforce, or maybe even a reasonable retirement nest egg if they are out of the working age. Hell even factor in opportunity costs that they reasonably had available too them, Ie you get the trophy model/lawyer spouse, then you need to compensate them

He's worth 9 figures and uses gmail?

[schwit1]

Rich and stupid. Opposing council's dream.

US Generals and CIA directors use Gmail too

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.theverge.com/2012/... [theverge.com]

Petraeus [a former General and CIA director] and Broadwell attempted to conceal affair using Gmail drafts

So I guess this guy's in good company.

Re:

[MerlynEmrys67]

Well, that and facebook.
It was fun having a facebook post from my ex presented to the judge where she was calling him a pedophile. Oh it was introduced to show her state of mind - the fact that the judge was named was icing

Why is this news?

[dagarath]

from TFA

“Google points to no evidence suggesting that Mr. Akhmedov is not the owner of the accounts, and he has clearly and expressly consented to production of their contents,” DeMarchi wrote

Re:

[lazarus]

I suspect that we are all supposed to be outraged at the violation of a person's technological privacy by a megacorp regardless of if they expressly permitted it or not. Frankly if you think that there is anything private in a divorce case you are delusional (generally speaking).

Bitches

[zenlessyank]

Am I right?

this is no surprise

[hdyoung]

The internet is not private. You're only anonymous until you matter. Anyone who thinks they can keep their internet activities secret are either irrelevant or fooling themselves. This has been shown over, and over, and over, and over.

When I say this, someone always comes back and says something like "but I always re-install my OS after I check email every time. And I only check over (insert favorite secret anonymizing service here) and I only buy things over TOR and teh dark web, and I never check the web more than once from the same IP addess and I always crack my phone in half after using it once blah blah blah."

Sure, you're Gus Fring. Congratulations. Back in reality, when an organization with real power decides you're important enough that they want your internet info, guess what? They get it. End of story.

Re:

[RhettLivingston]

Nothing is totally private except what is in your head, and even then it can usually be coerced. This turnover required a judge. A safe in your home has the same level of privacy.

An encrypted file on an air-gapped computer in your home is not safe. With enough suspicion, they could get permission to surveil you in your home without your knowledge, capture your password, and take the computer while you're away from it.

When an organization with real power decides you're important enough that they want the con

Re:

[cusco]

"You have no privacy. Get over it." - Scott McNealy to a reporter in 1998

Re:

[hdyoung]

No, that's different. I'm not saying that people have zero privacy, but that PRIVACY IS CONDITIONAL. You don't have 100% reliable guaranteed privacy under any conditions no matter what you're doing.

On one extreme, if you're doing something completely innocuous like buying a candy bar from a vending machine, paying with cash and not carrying a cell phone, you've got pretty close full privacy. On the other end of the spectrum, if you're trying to traffic in something highly illegal and doing it over the

Re:

[cusco]

you've got pretty close full privacy.

Yes, except for all the cameras that imaged you one the way, and the time-stamped transaction in the vending machine. Currently there is no way to integrate that data (fantasy movies like 'Enemy Of The State' notwithstanding), but eventually there will be.

An ally of Putin

[manu0601]

the wife of an ally of President Vladimir Putin

What does that mean? Are president Putin's allies entitled to free divorce assistance from the Kremlin?

Re:

[kqs]

Maybe. Allies of President Trump seem to be entitled to reduced-rate pardons, so there is precedent.

Re:

[dcw3]

Precedent was set long before Trump.

LBJ pardoned a congressman as a favor to Bobby Kennedy.
Bill Clinton pardoned Roger Clinton.
George H. W. Bush pardoned Armand Hammer (who donated $100k to the RNC)

What annoys me is that's it's a civil case

[adrian_vanburen]

and not a criminal one. Civil cases are when people do no crime. Just disagreements basically between people. So anyone can go to the court, say they're unhappy with you, and as long as it's spoken well enough, the court will bust open your entire life's history of emails. All in hopes to find one email. This is not just.