A New York Times investigation reveals Google’s alleged long-standing practices of limiting internal communication to avoid antitrust litigation. The tech giant reportedly encouraged employees to delete chat records, avoid controversial phrases, and mark documents as “attorney-client privileged” regardless of legal relevance.
By PC Bureau
While Google is renowned for storing the world’s information, the company allegedly restricted its internal communications to safeguard itself from antitrust litigation, according to a New York Times report. This strategy, reportedly in place since 2008, involved advising employees to delete messages, avoid specific terms, and exercise caution when discussing sensitive topics.
The shift came during antitrust scrutiny over an advertising deal with Yahoo. At the time, Google issued a confidential memo urging employees to avoid speculative or sarcastic remarks and to refrain from commenting on controversial topics without “all the facts.” The company also altered its instant messaging settings to “off the record,” ensuring potentially damaging messages would automatically delete within 24 hours.
These practices were unearthed during three recent antitrust trials. Evidence revealed Google encouraged employees to label documents as “attorney-client privileged” and to copy lawyers on emails, even when no legal advice was sought. This approach reportedly minimized the creation of discoverable documents, enabling the company to avoid scrutiny.
U.S. laws mandate companies to preserve documents in anticipation of litigation, but Google exempted instant messaging from these requirements. Instead, employees under litigation holds were responsible for enabling chat history retention—a step often overlooked, according to trial evidence.
Judges across the trials condemned Google’s practices. In the Epic Games antitrust case, Judge James Donato criticized the company for fostering “a systemic culture of suppression of relevant evidence,” calling it a “frontal assault on the fair administration of justice.” Similarly, a Virginia district court judge in a case involving Google’s advertising technology remarked that the company’s policies likely led to the destruction of critical evidence.
Google’s Chief Legal Officer, Kent Walker, testified that by its first decade, Google employees generated 13 times more emails than industry averages. Overwhelmed by the volume of communications, the company implemented stricter policies to reduce document creation, including the 2008 directive to auto-delete chat messages. Walker defended these measures, denying a “culture of concealment” but attributing the changes to misinterpretations of language by employees.
In response to growing criticism, Google revised its policies last year. The new protocol mandates the retention of all internal communications, including chats, and prevents employees on litigation holds from disabling chat history.
These revelations have intensified concerns about corporate transparency and accountability, casting a shadow over Google’s practices amidst its ongoing legal battles.
