WASHINGTON, DC – Today, The Tech Oversight Project issued the following statement after the Department of Justice (DOJ) called for sanctions against Google for deleting and concealing evidence in the landmark antitrust case against the tech giant’s ad tech business.
“Tech monopolies like Google believe that the rules don’t apply to them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Google’s internal communications policy was designed to conceal evidence from would-be investigators. This isn’t the first time Google has been caught red-handed for hiding messages, and we believe that Judge Brinkema should presume that the evidence Google deliberately concealed is damning and that their actions merit sanctions the Department of Justice put forward,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of the Tech Oversight Project.
The DOJ’s motion for sanctions cites Google’s infamous “communicate with care” policy, which was designed to systematically block investigators from obtaining potentially damaging information about Google’s anticompetitive practices.
Recently, The Tech Oversight Project and progressive allies led a letter to House and Senate Leaders calling for their respective committees to investigate tech companies like Google and Amazon that have come under fire for blatantly destroying evidence pertinent to antitrust investigations.
Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other top company executives of using disappearing messaging apps such as Signal to conceal potential evidence in the agency’s ongoing antitrust case against the e-commerce behemoth. Google has also come under fire from the Department of Justice for deleting or improperly instructing employees to conceal conversations related to antitrust concerns by using apps with disappearing messages.