Campbell et al v. Facebook Inc.

Filing 140

Notice of Filing of Re-Redacted Declaration of Dale Harrison in Response to Order on Administrative Motion to File under Seal filed by Facebook Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1)(Related document(s) 126 , 131 ) (Jessen, Joshua) (Filed on 11/16/2015) Modified on 11/16/2015 (vlkS, COURT STAFF).

EXHIBIT 1

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GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
JOSHUA A. JESSEN, SBN 222831
[e-mail]
JEANA BISNAR MAUTE, SBN 290573
[e-mail]
ASHLEY M. ROGERS, SBN 286252
[e-mail]
1881 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
GAIL E. LEES, SBN 90363
[e-mail]
CHRISTOPHER CHORBA, SBN 216692
[e-mail]
333 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90071
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
Attorneys for Defendant
FACEBOOK, INC.

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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OAKLAND DIVISON

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MATTHEW CAMPBELL, MICHAEL
HURLEY, and DAVID SHADPOUR,
Plaintiffs,
v.
FACEBOOK, INC.,

Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)
PUTATIVE CLASS ACTION
DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON
ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT
FACEBOOK, INC.

Defendant.

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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I, Dale Harrison, declare as follows:
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I have been employed as a software engineer at Facebook since August 2014, and my

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current title is Engineering Manager. I am over the age of 18. In connection with the above-

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captioned case, I conducted a search for and extraction of certain data, as described further below,

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and provided the extracted data to Facebook’s counsel, who I understand produced that data to the

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Plaintiffs in this case. I submit this declaration in response to the Court’s Minute Entry following the

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Telephonic Discovery Hearing on September 29, 2015 (Dkt. 118). Specifically, this declaration

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explains the time-consuming processes I undertook to gather the data already provided to Plaintiffs,

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as well as the amount of additional time and burden it would take to attempt to gather the additional

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data that I understand Plaintiffs are requesting (assuming that it were possible to gather that

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additional data, which it likely is not, and certainly not without significant additional work, for the

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reasons described below). Unless otherwise stated, the following facts are within my personal

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knowledge and, if called and sworn as a witness, I could and would testify competently to these facts.

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Plaintiffs’ Requests for Information

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2.

I understand that Plaintiffs in this case asked Facebook to identify:
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A list of all the Objects and Associations created during the process of sending a given
Message

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•

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All associated objects, including id, object type, and key/value pair (including for any

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URLs shared in the message); associations with source object association type,

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destination object, and key/value pair; database name and tables storing each

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association and object; each application or feature using each object or association;

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and how those objects are used by Facebook.
•

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3.

For each object, identification and production of the Object’s attributes.
I understand that Plaintiffs seek the above information related to 19 specific messages

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that Plaintiffs had sent or received. I further understand that Plaintiffs have represented that each of

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those 19 messages contained a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”)—i.e., a link to a website.

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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Summary of Search Results and Burden
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In connection with Plaintiffs’ requests, I was provided with information about 19

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messages that Plaintiffs sent or received. The information included the message senders, recipients,

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dates and times, and URLs contained in the messages. As explained in greater detail below,

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searching for these messages and extracting the relevant data was a time-consuming and labor-

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intensive process, and despite my extensive efforts, I was unable to locate 3 of the messages at all.

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5.

For the 16 messages I did locate, I was able to extract several pieces of information

relating to those messages. The information I extracted included:

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a.

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b.

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c.

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d.

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6.

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which

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would be responsive to Plaintiffs’ request for information about each application or feature using

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each object or association, and how those objects are used by Facebook.

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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7.

The Objects identified, extracted, and already produced to Plaintiffs—

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—are the
only Objects created in connection with sharing URLs in messages.
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information I located through my extensive searching—specifically,

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Nonetheless, I understand that Facebook has provided to Plaintiffs the additional

for the 16 messages I located.
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There is no automated or otherwise reasonable way to go beyond that and identify and

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gather information about any additional Objects and Associations (if any) that may have been created

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in connection with these 16 messages.

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Similarly, I am not aware of any automated or otherwise

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reasonable mechanism for identifying other specific applications or uses of any other potential

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Objects and Associations. I also have inquired with others within Facebook who would know, and

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they were unable to identify any automated or reasonable mechanism for locating this information.

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Background on Objects, Associations, and Searchability

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10.

I first wish to provide the Court with some background on Facebook and the relevant

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vocabulary here. Facebook is the world’s largest social network and has over 1 billion monthly

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active users worldwide. Given its size, Facebook’s software processes billions of actions per day,

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which involves processing and storing, in one way or another, billions of pieces of data per day.

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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“Associations” refer to relationships between certain data in Facebook’s system. By

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way of example only, the act of physically clicking a “Like” button on a third-party website may

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result in the creation of an Association between (a) the Object that represents the User who clicked

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the Like button, and (b) the Object that represents the URL of the third-party website. Associations

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exist as notations in the related Objects. Some events do not result in creation of any Associations.

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There is currently no search functionality to identify all Objects created in connection

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with the actions of a given Facebook user. Nor is there currently any search functionality to identify

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all Objects created in connection with a given Facebook message. In my experience, developing such

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functionality would likely be impossible, and at a minimum it would require hundreds of hours of

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engineering time.

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Procedure for Extracting the Produced Material

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In order to locate and extract the above data for these messages, I was required to

write new software code using
to find information about the messages in Facebook’s internal system. Where successful,

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the results of each search returned information for each message, stored in Facebook’s systems. This

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was a message-by-message exercise. Using this process, I was able to locate, extract, and provide

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information relating to 16 of the 19 messages. I understand that this information, referred to as

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was produced to Plaintiffs.
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As noted above, despite my best efforts, I was unable to locate 3 of the 19 messages.

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There are a number of possible reasons for this. For example, for one of the messages, I understand

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that Plaintiffs were unable to provide

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Without this data, I could not locate the message. It is also possible that Plaintiffs may have deleted

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certain messages (though I am informed that Plaintiffs represented this was not the case). At any

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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rate, as a result of the new code I wrote, I was able to locate information for 16 of the 19 messages

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selected by Plaintiffs.

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Using this process, I was able to locate, extract, and provide

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URL share information relating to 9 of the 16 messages. I understand that this information, referred

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to as

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was produced to Plaintiffs. 7 of the 16 messages did not have a
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Using this process, I was able to locate, extract, and provide information
relating to the 9 URLs in the 9

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I understand that this information, referred to as

was produced to Plaintiffs.
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At the request of Facebook’s counsel, after providing the above information, I

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continued to search for any other Objects that could have been created in connection with processing

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the 16 messages I located. Neither I, nor any other person to my knowledge, is aware of all possible

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Objects that could be created in connection with processing a Facebook message. However, I knew

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that it was likely that at least one other Object was created in connection with each message.

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This was a message-by-message

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exercise. Using this process, I was able to locate, extract, and provide additional information relating

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to 16 of the 19 messages. I understand that this information, referred to as

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produced to Plaintiffs.

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

was

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In total, working with counsel over the course of August and September, I estimate

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that I spent more than 25 hours writing new code and conducting the manual searches and extractions

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outlined above.

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Estimated Burden for Identifying and Producing Additional Objects and Associations

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I understand that Plaintiffs also seek all other Objects related to each of the 16

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messages that I was able to identify. This is likely impossible. If ordered to do so, I would first have

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to attempt to ascertain the identity of every Object or Association that could possibly be generated

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from a message, which may require consulting with engineers in every group who have worked on

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every past or present product or feature at Facebook (thousands of individuals) to find out what

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Objects each engineer believes can be generated as a result of their work at Facebook, and whether

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any of those Objects could be generated from sending a message. This also would require consulting

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former employees who would have this information. As a part of this exercise, I would also have to

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try to ascertain where in the Facebook system each of these types of Object may exist. Second, I

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would be required to try to assess what existing Facebook search functionality and tools are available

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for searching for, locating, and extracting, each such Object type. As noted above, there is no search

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function that returns all Objects for a given user; however, if I were to learn of an Object type that

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may exist for these messages, it may be that there is existing search functionality for locating and

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extracting that Object. Depending on the existing functionality, it might be necessary to write new

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code to identify or extract such Objects, either individually or potentially in batch form. It is unclear

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whether this would be possible. My best estimate is that, if search functionality either exists or could

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be developed to identify and extract this information, it could take hundreds of man hours to do so.

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Depending on how many objects there are, it could take a much longer period of time.

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Identifying Applications or Features or other Use of Objects and Associations

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I understand that Plaintiffs also asked Facebook to identify each application or feature

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in Facebook that can use the Objects and Associations for each of these messages. But the

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comprehensive record of Facebook functions that used any given Object or Association type at any

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given time is Facebook’s source code. And it is outside the scope of any single engineer’s personal

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knowledge—and would be exceedingly burdensome to review the source code in its entirety—to

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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develop a list of all possible uses of Objects and Associations. If Plaintiffs identified a given

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Facebook application or feature, Facebook engineers may know from their personal knowledge or

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could possibly identify the relevant code and/or other technical documentation to ascertain whether

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certain types of Objects and Associations were utilized in that application or feature. However, the

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abstract hypothetical question as to all possible uses is likely impossible to answer.

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The

documentation that Facebook has already produced to Plaintiffs

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. This information should help Plaintiffs conduct their own review of the relevant

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source code.

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Hyperlinks Referenced in Produced Documents

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I understand that Plaintiffs have also asked Facebook to produce

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for the
16 historical messages I extracted.

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the

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foregoing is true and correct and that this declaration was executed on October 6, 2015 in Günzburg,

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Germany.

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/s/ Dale Harrison
Dale Harrison

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)

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ATTORNEY ATTESTATION
I, Joshua A. Jessen, attest that concurrence in the filing of this Declaration of Dale Harrison

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has been obtained from the signatory. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United

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States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 6th day of October, 2015, in

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Irvine, California.

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/s/ Joshua A. Jessen
Joshua A. Jessen

Dated: October 6, 2015

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.
Case No. C 13-05996 PJH (MEJ)