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"Google consciously failed to preserve relevant evidence. The daily destruction of relevant evidence was inevitable when Google set a company-wide default to delete history-off chat messages every 24 hours, and then elected to maintain that auto-delete setting for custodians subject to a litigation hold," US Department of Justice antitrust lawyers wrote in a memorandum supporting the motion.
Google "had a duty to preserve employee chat messages" starting in 2019 due to the litigation, the US motion said. //
"Amazingly, Google's daily spoliation continued until this week," the US alleged. "When the United States indicated that it would file this motion—following months of conferral—Google finally committed to 'permanently set to history on' and thus preserve its employees' chat messages." //
A similar motion for sanctions was filed by 21 states that are also involved in the litigation against Google. The motions came in a lawsuit filed in October 2020 in which the US and states allege that Google illegally maintains monopolies in search and search advertising through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices." //
All this time, Google falsely told the United States that Google had "put a legal hold in place" that "suspends auto-deletion." Indeed, during the United States' investigation and the discovery phase of this litigation, Google repeatedly misrepresented its document preservation policies, which conveyed the false impression that the company was preserving all custodial chats. Not only did Google unequivocally assert during the investigation that its legal hold suspended auto-deletion, but Google continually failed to disclose—both to the United States and to the Court—its 24-hour auto-deletion policy. Instead, at every turn, Google reaffirmed that it was preserving and searching all potentially relevant written communications.
The dispute is similar to an earlier one in the same lawsuit that involved Google's alleged practice of routinely CCing lawyers on emails even when no legal advice is being sought. In March 2022, the US and states asked the federal court to sanction Google for misusing attorney-client privilege to hide emails from litigation.
