The Wayback machine has taken 2,073 snapshots of the CDC’s COVID-19 Business Guidance webpage since it was launched March 6, 2020. Why would it make >11 snapshots per day (74 on August 17th)? This CDC page is the primary national level guidance for businesses that want to reopen safely. The nifty Changes tool (beta screenshot below) shows that page could have changed 2-3 times in a day. Were those substantial changes? Can you produce the EXACT guidance that you relied on to formulate your pandemic response policies, protocols and employee guidelines for the rising tide of employee death/disability litigation? I am challenging web preservation providers to solve this problem for you.
CDC Business Guidance – WayBack Machine Changes View
Legal teams will need more than a simple collection of raw archives or snapshot .mhtml files. They want to see how you processed, parsed, deduplicated and displayed the timeline of changes so that they can match up the evolving guidance to defend their best knowledge when creating their response strategy. Please do not put the results behind a contact/pay wall. Demonstrate why your solution is better than your competitors and will save customers time/effort when dealing with web collections.
A quick list of providers that I know do(did) web collections:
Nextpoint
X1 Rapid Discovery
Exterro Fusion E-Discovery
Lexbe eDiscovery Platform
AD eDiscovery
TCDI Fox
Lit I View
EnCase eDiscovery
Forensics Acquisition of Websites (FAW)
WebPreserver.com
MAGNET Web Page Saver
There are a lot more and I hope that peers will call them out in comments. Below is my simple list of primary national/international COVID-19 business guidance web pages. Almost every state has online guidance to interpret local laws/regulations. Please put those in another repository if you decide to go the extra mile in your collections.
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-business-response.html
- https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/covid-19/
- https://www.who.int/teams/risk-communication/employers-and-workers
I am interested in seeing who takes up this challenge and how their solutions tackle identifying the changes over time.
Greg Buckles wants your feedback, questions or project inquiries at Greg@eDJGroupInc.com. Contact him directly for a free 15 minute ‘Good Karma’ call. He solves problems and creates eDiscovery solutions for enterprise and law firm clients.
Greg’s blog perspectives are personal opinions and should not be interpreted as a professional judgment or advice. Greg is no longer a journalist and all perspectives are based on best public information. Blog content is neither approved nor reviewed by any providers prior to being posted. Do you want to share your own perspective? Greg is looking for practical, professional informative perspectives free of marketing fluff, hidden agendas or personal/product bias. Outside blogs will clearly indicate the author, company and any relevant affiliations.