A federal judge blasted Google this week after finding that the tech giant intentionally deleted chat records that were being sought as a part of a wide-ranging antitrust dispute over its app store, Google Play.
U.S. District Judge James Donato found that the corporate’s failure to maintain internal chat logs violated a court order in the case, which is considered one of several antitrust lawsuits that threaten Google’s dominance over search and digital promoting and beyond.
Plaintiffs, including 38 District of Columbia Attorneys General, Epic Games and Match Group, allege that the corporate’s app store policy is exclusionary and harmful to competition.
Donato noted that internal chat logs between employees were speculated to be saved with the “history on” setting and delivered to the court as a part of the case discovery process. As an alternative, the messages were deleted using the auto-delete feature.
The judge said Google “intended to subvert the invention process” through its actions, in line with Mercury News.
![Sundar Pichai](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000004296370-1.jpg?w=1024)
“Google tried to downplay the difficulty and showed a dismissive attitude that was not in keeping with the seriousness of its conduct,” Donato said in Tuesday’s ruling.
Donato determined that Google must pay the plaintiff’s legal fees for the litigation related to the deleted chat logs.
Moreover, the judge stated that “determining the suitable non-pecuniary penalty requires further investigation.”
![Sundar Pichai](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000000755604-1.jpg?w=1024)
A Google spokesperson retracted from the court’s ruling, noting in an announcement that the corporate “produced greater than three million documents, including 1000’s of chats” through the legal proceedings.
“We’ll proceed to point out the court how selection, security and openness are built into Android and Google Play,” the spokesperson added.
The judge’s ruling got here after Monday’s filing by plaintiffs alleging a “company-wide culture of concealment coming from the very top, including CEO Sundar Pichai.”
The plaintiffs’ filing noted one chat conversation where Pichai, discussing something related to an antitrust case, asked if the “history disabled” setting may very well be enabled.
Google’s CEO then allegedly unsuccessfully tried to delete the message.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta also targeted Google after Donato’s ruling.
“Google not only breached the trust of Android phone customers by restricting consumer selection and charging outrageous commissions, but additionally breached the detection process in this case,” Bonta said in an announcement.
“This egregious behavior shows how far Google will go to keep up its anti-competitive position in the market,” added Bonta.
Plaintiffs are looking for billions of dollars in damages over claims that Google has stifled rivals and harmed competition through its app store policies.
The corporate has denied any wrongdoing.
![Google](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008942518.jpg?w=1024)
Earlier this month, Google denied intentionally destroying internal chat logs in a separate litigation related to the Justice Department’s antitrust challenge over search engine dominance.
Donato’s ruling is one other headache for Google, which, together with other Big Tech corporations, faces increasing antitrust scrutiny from state and federal authorities.
As reported by The Post, Google made an embarrassing mistake earlier this month after its much touted AI chatbot, Bard, said it supported the DOJ’s antitrust motion against its creator.
With postal wires