Shredded Microsoft documents are headed for the hopper

Computerworld - Approximately 3 million pages of Microsoft Corp. documents, once part of a lawsuit against the software company, are being shredded and will ultimately become toilet paper.
The court-ordered documents, which filled 937 boxes, were part of an unfair-competition lawsuit filed in 1996 by Lindon, Utah-based Caldera International Inc., now The SCO Group Inc. The documents had been stored by Redman Records in Salt Lake City.
The lawsuit was settled in January 2000 when Microsoft paid at least $155 million to Caldera (see story).
According to court records, the company persuaded U.S. District Judge Dee Benson in October to order the destruction of the Microsoft documents. At the eleventh hour, Sun Microsystems Inc. petitioned the court to stop the destruction so it could look for evidence to support its own antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.
The judge granted that petition, and Sun pulled out 40 boxes of documents from the 937 in Caldera's possession, according to Paul Grewal, Sun's Cupertino, Calif.-based attorney.
Grewal said Sun has finished scanning the pertinent documents, and they have all been sent to Recall Secure Destruction Service in Salt Lake City to be shredded.
The rest of the documents were sent to Recall approximately two weeks ago, according to J. Harrison Colter, an attorney for The Canopy Group Inc., an operating company that provides funding to SCO.
Recall spokesman Matt Nixon said he couldn't disclose its client list or discuss the materials that are destroyed at Recall facilities. However, he said, once materials are securely shredded by Recall, they are accumulated in 1,400-lb. bales and sold to domestic pulp mills. Because of the inconsistent quality of the paper, the paper pulp is mostly used to produce toilet tissue.
A Microsoft attorney couldn't be reached for comment.

Read more about legislation/regulation in Computerworld's Legislation/Regulation Knowledge Center.