A federal judge ruled that Google violated a court order requiring it to preserve chat messages from employees relevant to Epic’s antitrust case, according to Bloomberg and CNBC. San Francisco US District Judge James Donato said the tech giant “adopted a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for saving messages, at the expense of its retention duties,” and should be punished for its actions. Donato has yet to decide what sanctions and penalties Google should face, but he ordered the company to cover Epic’s attorney fees related to this particular issue.
Donato said in his decision that Google gave nearly 360 employees complete freedom to decide whether or not to keep chat histories. In a separate Justice Department filing on the same complaint, the agency explained that the tech giant’s internal chat room, which is used to discuss “substantive and sensitive business,” is set to delete chat messages within 24 hours. hours by default. The agency expected Google to change its chat history settings in 2019 when it “reasonably anticipated [the] litigation”, but allegedly left the decision to individual employees.
Epic Games, to support their case, recently submitted exhibits to show how Google employees tend to turn off chat history. In one example from 2021, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly wrote: “…we can also change the settings for this group to turn history off.” He tried to delete that message a few seconds later, according to the file. Google employees are also reportedly turning off chat histories when discussing topics, such as revenue sharing and mobile app distribution deals, as well as a project that involves changing Google Play’s commission rates.
In a statement, a Google spokesperson said the company has worked with Epic and researchers over the years, turning over millions of documents: “Our teams have worked diligently, for years, to respond to discovery requests from Epic and the state AGs and we have produced over three million documents, including thousands of chats. We will continue to show the court how choice, security and openness are integrated into Android and Google Play,” they said.
The judge will carry out further proceedings to specify the sanctions that Google must face. Donato said that he would like to see the evidence available “at the end of the discovery of the facts,” so that Epic is better positioned to “tell the Court what might have been missed in the Chat communications.”
