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A Google spokeswoman said the company disputes the Justice Department’s allegations.
Photo:
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department said Google destroyed written records needed for an antitrust lawsuit that focuses on how the company preserved its dominance in internet search.
The government asked a federal judge Thursday to sanction Google for its past practice of setting employee chats to auto-delete, despite the company having told the court it would preserve records required for litigation. Google employees routinely discussed “substantive and sensitive business” using an instant-messaging product that was set to delete chats after 24 hours, the Justice Department said.
A Google spokeswoman said the company disputes the DOJ’s allegations. “Our teams have conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation,” the spokeswoman said. “In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world.”
The evidence fight relates to the DOJ lawsuit filed in October 2020, which alleged that Google maintains its status as gatekeeper to the internet through an unlawful web of exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out competitors.
The DOJ said in a court filing Thursday that Google trained employees on the benefits of using “off the record chats.”
Federal rules for litigation required Google to suspend deleting chats in mid-2019, when Google would have anticipated the antitrust lawsuit, the government said. But Google continued using “off the record chats” even after the lawsuit was filed, the DOJ’s attorneys wrote.
The government said the company only committed this week to permanently preserve its employees’ chat messages—after DOJ officials informed Google they would file their motion for sanctions.
Justice Department attorneys said the deleted chats may have contained especially relevant information and revealed candid discussions between executives. The government asked U.S. District Judge
Amit Mehta
to impose sanctions on Google after holding a hearing where its conduct could be probed.
Alphabet’s
Google unit is defending itself against two separate antitrust lawsuits filed by the DOJ and groups of states. In addition to the lawsuit over Google’s search dominance, the Justice Department last month sued the company over its adtech business practices.
The adtech lawsuit seeks the breakup of Google’s business brokering digital advertising across much of the internet. That court complaint also promises a protracted court battle with wide-ranging implications for the digital-advertising industry.
Write to Dave Michaels at dave.michaels@wsj.com
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Appeared in the February 24, 2023, print edition as ‘DOJ Says Google Destroyed Evidence.’
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