If that's true, it sounds like companies have been weaponizing the legal system to get access to proprietary information from their competitors. Surely that has got to be illegal somehow?
The court decides whether a subpoena should be upheld or not. If the judge has signed off on this one, then it's all legit. Failing to comply would be contempt of court.
I'll never understand how US court system basically allow you to randomly force anyone unrelated to a case into it and suffer the legal cost. It make it so easy to weaponize any case to your advantage.
What if a ruling requires information held by someone else? Should the case just be dismissed because of lack of evidence? Having a functional justice system is probably worth some snags.
The legal cost aspect is unfortunate. However, as others have mentioned, the court probably doesn't require the assembly of new documents, but rather submission of existing ones. So while there is a cost, it's not devastating.
The interesting question is whether or not this specific subpoena has real merit, or if the court was played by Meta.
