According to Reuters, citing court documents, attorneys for the US Department of Justice claim Google destroyed internal company communications. They asked a federal judge to sanction the company within the framework of the antitrust procedure launched by the government against its research activity, which would guarantee it a privileged position in the online advertising market. According to the government, Google would not have suspended the “auto delete” chat communications, as it was required to do under a federal court ruling governing electronically stored information.
“Google’s daily destruction of written documents has harmed the United States by depriving it of a rich source of frank and open discussions among Google executives, including likely witnesses at trial”in particular wrote in the file a lawyer of the department of Justice.
Google responded in a statement: “Our teams have worked diligently for years to respond to inquiries and disputes”, said a spokesperson. The company claims to have “produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more for regulators around the world”.
At the end of January, the US courts filed a 140-page complaint concerning all of Google’s advertising activities. The Biden administration is attacking the digital giant for abuse of a dominant position. Lawsuits described by the media as the most important brought against the search giant.