DOJ: Google Destroyed Chats They Were Required to Preserve for Antitrust Investigation

According to the DOJ Google deleted chat messages it was required during an antitrust investigation. A filing claims that Google deleted chat messages it was required to save during an antitrust investigation. “Amazingly, Google’s daily spoliation continued until this week. When the United States indicated that it would file this motion — following months of conferral — Google finally committed to ‘permanently set to history on’ and thus preserve its employees’ chat messages.”

Google “systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours,” In violation of federal rules that allow chats to be relevant to litigation, the DOJ stated in a Filing.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google ( Carsten Koall / Getty)

“The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure required Google to suspend its auto-delete practices in mid-2019, when the company reasonably anticipated this litigation. Google did not,” The DOJ stated.

“Instead, as described above, Google abdicated its burden to individual custodians to preserve potentially relevant chats,” The DOJ was also added. “Few, if any, document custodians did so. That is, few custodians, if any, manually changed, on a chat-by-chat basis, the history default from off to on.”

This has led to the tech giant becoming a global player. “systematically destroyed” Potentially relevant communication “every 24 hours,” The DOJ has confirmed the filing.

Investigators claim that Google is also responsible. “falsely” It told the U.S. government that it had “put a legal hold in place” That “suspends auto-deletion.”

According to the DOJ, “at every turn, Google reaffirmed that it was preserving and searching all potentially relevant written communications.”

“Amazingly, Google’s daily spoliation continued until this week,” The DOJ was also added. “When the United States indicated that it would file this motion — following months of conferral — Google finally committed to ‘permanently set to history on’ and thus preserve its employees’ chat messages.”

A Google spokesperson Submitted Officials from CNBC “strongly refute the DOJ’s claims.”

“Our teams have conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation. In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world,” According to the spokesperson.

It is not the first time that the topic of Google chats has been brought up in antitrust litigation.

In Epic Games’ antitrust litigation against Google, the video game company submitted exhibits that appeared to show Google employees suggesting chats were a safer place to have sensitive conversations, CNBC noted.

In that case, an exhibit showed an employee saying, “Since it’s a sensitive topic, I prefer to discuss offline or over hangout” — in reference to Google’s chat product in question.

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