Disclaimer

This site is general information

Everything published here describes how paid-search records generally behave: what an advertising account holds, how long a platform keeps it, what an export does and does not contain, and what kinds of question that record can answer. It is written at the level of the general case, because that is the only level at which it can be written for a reader I have never met.

Your matter is a specific case. It has particular accounts, a particular history of access, particular contract language, and a particular record that may or may not still exist. Nothing here has been applied to those facts, because I have not seen them. A general description that fits most matters can be wrong about yours in exactly the way that matters most.

Bill Hartzer is not an attorney, and nothing here is legal advice

I am not an attorney. I am not licensed to practice law, I do not practice law, and nothing on this site — in any page, any example, any description of a rule or a decision — is legal advice, an opinion on the merits of a claim or defense, or a recommendation about what to do in a proceeding.

Rules and published decisions are named here where they explain why a record matters, or why an expert opinion in this field has to be built one way rather than another. Naming a rule is not construing it. Whether a rule reaches your facts, what a decision means in your court, and what should be filed and when are all questions for counsel, and this site does not answer them.

No outcome is promised in any matter

Nothing here offers, predicts or undertakes a result. Not a ruling, not a finding, not a settlement, not the acceptance of an opinion, not a favorable reading of any record.

An expert opinion is evidence offered to a court, and a court may accept it, discount it or exclude it. It is subject to challenge by opposing counsel and to a competing opinion from another examiner working the same materials. Findings are stated as what the record shows or is consistent with, and they carry the limits of the record they came from. Nobody in this field can honestly offer more than that, and anyone who does offer more should be treated as a warning rather than a reassurance.

An examination is also not certain to help the party that commissioned it. An honest reading of an account sometimes produces a finding the retaining party did not want. That possibility is part of the work and it is not negotiable.

Reading this site, or writing to me, creates no engagement

No relationship of any kind is formed by visiting this site, reading a page, printing one, or sending a message through the contact page or by email. I am not your expert, not your consultant and not your advisor until a conflict check has cleared and an engagement has been agreed in writing.

The practical consequence deserves emphasis. A message sent before that point is neither confidential nor privileged. Name the parties so a conflict check can run, describe the dispute in general terms, and send nothing you would mind an adversary reading.

Retention windows and platform behavior are as of the date read

Every retention figure, reporting field, policy statement and product behavior described anywhere on this site is stated as of the date it was read, and that date accompanies the statement. Advertising platforms change all of it — window lengths, field availability, attribution defaults, what an export contains — on their own schedule, sometimes without an announcement and never with notice to you.

Two of the retention windows described on this site changed within the past twelve months, and the direction of change in this field has been shorter rather than longer. A number that was correct when it was published can therefore be wrong by the time you read it. Treat every figure here as a prompt to check the platform's current documentation, never as a substitute for checking it. A preservation decision taken on a stale figure is the one mistake in this area that cannot be repaired afterward.

Third-party names and marks

Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Meta and other platforms, products and organizations are named here descriptively, to identify what is being discussed. Their names and marks belong to their owners. Nothing on this site implies affiliation with, sponsorship by, endorsement from, or any authority delegated by any of them.