Google has been facing increasing pressure and undergoing legal scrutiny for maintaining an illegal monopoly in the digital advertising space that goes against competition laws. While the company is under investigation, it is now dealing with another set of complications as recently, the employees of the company have landed themselves in hot waters for deliberately attempting to hide messages from the investigators in order to avoid being trapped in more legal issues by removing potential evidence.
Google is facing another complication in its antitrust investigation as DOJ claims employees tried to hide potential evidence
Google faced a legal claim for going against competition laws by engaging in monopolistic practices in the search engine market and digital advertising. As reported by The Verge, a recent proceeding of the case was going on in Virginia, where the lawyers of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) claimed that Google employees have been trying to pass messages that could be potential evidence as 'confidential' and 'off the record.'
This attempt to hide has been ongoing despite the investigators clearly emphasizing the importance of preserving communication for investigation and adding another layer of complication to the legal matter. If the second antitrust trial judge declares this intention as an effort to conceal evidence, it could bring some serious trouble for Google, and an adverse inference ruling could also be issued.
According to the ruling, the court draws the assumption that the information destroyed is, in fact, detrimental to the case and, hence, removed as a result. It could potentially harm Google's position by changing the narrative and bolstering the government's case.
On Friday, former Google sell-side ad executive Chris LaSala suggested in Google's defense that Google's chat messages had turned off the history by default and that employees had to change the settings on an individual basis manually. Many employees then admitted that they did not make the needed changes, and while the conversation was mainly of a casual nature, some messages did carry important business discussions.
Some instances have been highlighted in court by the government, where LaSala instructed employees to turn off chat history for sensitive information exchange. Such practices by the company tend to not favor them in the proceedings and may lead to legal repercussions if the court declares the attempts as intentional. Companies are facing increased pressure to be more vigilant about laws and regulations to avoid being part of any legal complications.
