Deciding whether or not to comply and how would depend on knowing what it means and the likely consequences of several actions. It would also probably depend on the specifics.

Dude, it’s not complicated. If they have a warrant, they get what warrant says. How does Ring’s lawyer help you?

Glad your world is very simple.

Point about Ring's lawyers (which we've seemingly gotten away from this deep into the thread) is you do not pay for them. You don't get to be involved in strategy either, which may not be in your interests. Getting the best thing for your interests may require paying a lot for a lawyer and a lot of stress.

Ring doesn't craft minimally-responsive answers to subpoenas and warrants either. No big tech company does. That would take money (having a staff lawyer and some help to handle those is expensive), and they don't really care that much about your data.

When you own it, you can fight back to your heart's content.

And by the way, you do pay for Ring's lawyers if you use their product.

> they don't really care that much about your data.

The most important point

If you're storing the data on site then they turn up with a warrant and take the hardware.

A subpoena for Ring is an order to produce data. A warrant for Joe's CCTV at 223 Acacia Avenue is permission to take the data.

So you're saying that, in the event of owning your own data and being asked for it, you would get a lawyer because you acknowledge that there could be unforeseen conseqeuences and aspects of the request that you might not understand. But you would simultaneously prefer to let a megacorp own your data so you don't have to think about any of that?

So you're happy to give away your data, but also insistent that you should pay someone to review the request for your data. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding your comments (very possible), but I think I at least understand why some folks are confused.

I did say both of these things. Because there are upshots and downsides to each. Both are true.

You can't escape the shittiness of this problem by running your own server. It's a bad situation either way.

The root of the problem as i read it is overly zealous law enforcement and a judge that is not acting as a proper check on their power. It's a political problem. It can't be escaped with purely technical solutions like who stores the data.

Point taken, but I don't see enough of an upshot to giving away your data from the very start — retaining zero control so you don't have to deal with requests that may or may not ever happen.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lawyer would want to view all the footage themselves, before making any decision like that. Hopefully, you aren't keeping 6 months worth, because lawyers typically charge by the hour.

I think there may be a significant advantage to running your own server: you can controll how long you want to keep the data. For example, you can keep data from cameras recording the street/yard for longer and delete footage from inside the house daily (or choose to not even record when you are at home).

That's what I did, and I don't feel even a little nervous about it. I did it because it was obviously in my best interest to help them investigate a crime that I was the victim in, and because I am 100% confident that the footage is otherwise innocuous.

But it all depends on the circumstances. As you say, the whole point of ownership is that I get to make that sort of decision.