The Department of Justice (DOJ) is accusing Google to routinely destroy chat histories of internal messages, which the company must preserve under federal rules for an antitrust lawsuit. Google is dealing with not just one, but a pair of antitrust lawsuits filed by the DOJ and state groups. This particular case relates to the lawsuit the department filed in 2020 for “maintaining unlawful monopolies” around search and search-related advertising.
At the Department of Justice presentation, said company employees typically used its internal chat room, which was set to delete history every 24 hours, to discuss “substantive and confidential business.” The agency apparently expected Google to change its chat history settings in 2019 when the company “reasonably anticipated [the] litigation”, but left the decision to individual employees. Only a few people considered their chat histories relevant to the case and kept theirs for the court, and Google continued to delete most people’s chats even after that the claim was filed.
Despite that, Google reportedly told the government that it had already “established a legal hold” to suspend automatic removal in its chat tool. The Justice Department alleges the company’s claim was a lie and that it actually stopped deleting chat histories this week after being warned the agency would file a sanctions motion. He is now asking the court to rule that Google violated a federal rule and to order a hearing that would determine how the company would be penalized. The Justice Department also wants the court to order Google to provide more information about its chat practices.
Google, however, denies the Justice Department’s allegations. said a spokesman The Wall Street Journal: “Our teams have worked diligently for years to respond to inquiries and litigation. In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more for regulators around the world.”
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