- The Justice Department urged a federal judge Thursday to sanction Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google for its past practice of setting employee chats to auto-delete, despite promising to preserve records required for litigation.
- The Justice Department said Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google destroyed written records pivotal to an antitrust lawsuit on preserving its internet search dominance, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- Google employees routinely discussed “substantive and sensitive business” using an instant-messaging product that deleted chats after 24 hours, the Justice Department said.
- Also Read: US DOJ Rekindled Antitrust Investigation In Google Maps: Report
- Google has denied the DOJ’s allegations.
- The evidence fight relates to the DOJ’s 2020 lawsuit on Google for allegedly maintaining an unlawful web of exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out rivals.
- Federal rules for litigation required Google to suspend deleting chats in mid-2019. But Google continued using “off the record chats” despite the lawsuit, the DOJ’s attorneys wrote.
- The government said the company only committed to permanently preserving its employees’ chat messages this week 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.
- Price Action: GOOG shares traded lower by 1.26% at $89.92 in the premarket on the last check Friday.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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