> Courts have always had the power to compel parties to a current case to preserve evidence.
Not just that, even without a specific court order parties to existing or reasonably anticipated litigation have a legal obligation that attaches immediately to preserve evidence. Courts tend to issue orders when a party presents reason to believe another party is out of compliance with that automatic obligation, or when there is a dispute over the extent of the obligation. (In this case, both factors seem to be in play.)
Lopez v. Apple (2024) seems to be a recent and useful example of this; my lay understanding is that Apple was found to have failed in its duty to switch from auto-deletion (even if that auto-deletion was contractually promised to users) to an evidence-preservation level of retention, immediately when litigation was filed.
https://codiscovr.com/news/fumiko-lopez-et-al-v-apple-inc/
https://app.ediscoveryassistant.com/case_law/58071-lopez-v-a...
Perhaps the larger lesson here is: if you don't want your service provider to end up being required to retain your private queries, there's really no way to guarantee it, and the only real mitigation is to choose a service provider who's less likely to be sued!
(Not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)