In an antitrust case, the DOJ has accused Google of destroying evidence

Google was accused by the US Department of Justice on Thursday of deleting evidence that would have been used in an antitrust lawsuit against the company.

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A court filing on Thursday by the Justice Department requested that a federal judge impose sanctions against the company due to its "intentional and repeated destruction of written communications." Sanctions are punishments that are imposed on those who ignore the orders of a court.  

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The Justice Department has filed a complaint alleging that Google has long had a practice of encouraging its employees to communicate via "off the record" chats which are automatically deleted after 24 hours once the chats have been sent.

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This filing by the Justice Department said that Google had "trained" its employees to consider these messages - also known as Google Hangouts or instant messages - as better than emails since they wouldn't be retained by the company in the same manner that emails are.

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"So it's not surprising that Google was aware users often had "off the record" chats "to discuss sensitive topics," the Justice Department said. 

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As part of its antitrust lawsuit against Google, the Justice Department filed its complaint in 2020, alleging that the company used unlawful tactics while attempting to maintain its dominance in an internet search.

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Google had been asked as early as mid-2019 to suspend its auto-delete practices by the Justice Department as a precautionary measure to be prepared for the lawsuit, according to the filing.

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In a complaint filed by the Justice Department, it comes to light that not only did Google not suspend its auto-delete practices at the time, but continued to delete chats every 24 hours up until February 8 of this year.

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"As a result of Google's daily destruction of written records, the United States has lost a rich source of candid discussions between Google's executives, as well as potential witnesses for future trials," according to a filing by the Justice Department. 

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"We strongly refute the claims of the DOJ," said a Google spokesperson to Insider. Our team has been dedicated to responding to inquiries and litigation for years now. “In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, as well as millions more to regulators around the world." 

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A request for comment from Trade Algo was not immediately responded to by the Justice Department.

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