Google faces sanctions motion over systematic deletion of chat messages in antitrust case
State plaintiffs allege Google deliberately destroyed millions of chat messages to avoid discovery in ongoing ad tech litigation.
According to a motion filed on January 6, 2025 in the Eastern District of Texas, multiple U.S. states are seeking sanctions against Google for allegedly destroying millions of internal chat messages that should have been preserved for ongoing antitrust litigation.
The states accuse Google of implementing a deliberate policy between 2008 and 2023 that made "history off" the default setting for employee chat messages, causing them to be automatically deleted after 24 hours. According to the filing, Google's Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker explicitly told employees in writing that this policy was designed to ensure most chats would not be available to adversaries in future litigation.
Luís Rijo
The motion reveals that of Google's 202 custodians involved in the case, 61 were not placed under litigation holds until 2022 or later - more than three years after Texas issued its first Civil Investigative Demand in September 2019, and two years after Google represented it had implemented proper preservation measures.
Court documents indicate that analysis of available chat logs from December 2022 to February 2023 showed that Google CEO Sundar Pichai had 96% of his chat messages automatically deleted during this period. Extrapolating from the available data, the states estimate Google's policies resulted in the deletion of approximately 20,000 messages per custodian annually, totaling between 2.8 and 4 million deleted chat messages per year across all custodians in the litigation.
The states argue that Google's actions warrant severe sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), requesting that the court instruct the jury that Google had an obligation to preserve the chats, intentionally deleted millions of messages, and that jurors must presume the deleted communications contained information unfavorable to Google.
According to released documents, Google modified its chat retention policies in February 2023, around the time another federal court criticized the company for similar conduct. The new policy changed the default setting to preserve chat history and removed the ability for employees under litigation holds to disable message retention.
The motion cites multiple instances where Google employees acknowledged using "history off" chats specifically to avoid having communications preserved for litigation. In one cited exchange from August 2022, an employee noted that chat history being preserved "forever" was "probably not a great idea for a public company unless you want to end up getting deposed alot."
The filing represents the latest development in a multi-state antitrust lawsuit initially filed in 2020, focusing on Google's conduct in digital advertising markets. The case, led by the state of Texas, alleges that Google illegally monopolized various aspects of the ad tech ecosystem.
Google faces similar allegations about chat message destruction in other ongoing antitrust litigation. The motion references a California federal court's characterization of Google's practices as "a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy for Chat preservation" in a separate case involving the Google Play Store.
The states argue that Google's systematic destruction of chat messages has prejudiced their ability to prove their case, as the communications likely contained candid discussions about Google's business practices that are not captured in preserved emails or other documents.