Epic Games produces documents in an antitrust case against Google

Game publisher Epic Games has filed a new antitrust case against Google. The lawyers representing the plaintiffs have also submitted several exhibits attempting to show the tendency of Google employees to get rid of chat history during internal discussions.

Epic Games produces documents in the antitrust case against Google

According to Epic, switching off chat history on internal discussions aimed to eliminate sensitive communications linked to the lawsuit. The issue of Google deleting chat history was recently tabled by the US Department of Justice in the antitrust investigation, saying Google had routinely destroyed communication details.

In one of the instances, the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, requested that chat history be turned off and attempted unsuccessfully to delete the preceding message. However, the exhibit in court said the topic of the matter would affect Epic’s antitrust case against the tech giant.

In some chats, employees at Google were found to request other employees to turn off chat history when discussing sensitive matters. A similar case was seen by the Head of Platforms & Ecosystems Strategy for Android at Google, Margaret Lam, who said she turned off the chat history for the Revenue Share Agreement (RSA) contracts. The exhibit also shows other instances where Lam urged employees to turn off chat history.

In 2021, a conversation showed one Google employee asking another employee whether they could discuss Project Runway. The employee was urged to “communicate with care.” The employees were also reminded that group chats could not have their history turned off.

Several other conversations featuring Google VP Tian Lim asked employees to turn off the chat history. However, the employee testified in mid-January this year that the tech giant had made efforts to comply with obligations and preserve chat communications subject to the legal hold.

Epic Games’ lawsuit against Google

Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Google because of alleged antitrust violations that happened in August 2020. The lawsuit was filed after the company forced Google to remove the Fortnite mobile game from the Google Play Store by violating the policies at the app store around in-app purchases.

Most of the chats that have been shared in this discovery are from 2021, showing that a litigation hold on the conversations by Google employees was necessary. Nevertheless, across the 35 new exhibits featuring several Google employees discussing turning off chat history, there is no certainty that the employees were discussing Epic Games and the antitrust claims.

From the exhibit, it appears that Google employees were making conversations that may or may not have been related to the case. However, the records show that many employees at Google tend to switch off chat history or use platforms where conversation cannot be tracked. The matter is up to the judge to determine whether or not Google needs to be sanctioned for turning off the chat history.