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Google allegedly hid documents from search monopoly lawsuit, DOJ claims:
Google employees have been improperly using attorney-client privilege to hide documents from discovery in litigation and government investigations, according to fresh allegations laid by the US Justice Department (DOJ).
"Google has explicitly and repeatedly instructed its employees to shield important business communications from discovery by using false requests for legal advice," DOJ attorneys wrote in a court filing for its search monopoly lawsuit against Google.
According to the court filing [PDF], Google taught employees to slap an attorney-client privilege label and generic "request" for counsel's advice label on any sensitive business communications that Google might wish to shield from discovery. Slapping these labels onto communications prevents them from being provided for discovery in litigation.
This practice has allegedly been used throughout all levels of Google's hierarchy, with the DOJ claiming Google parent company Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai copied Google chief legal officer Kent Walker onto an email to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki about how to respond to a press inquiry, with "Attorney Client Privileged" at the top.
In these "camouflaged" communications, the attorney allegedly remained silent on a frequent basis, which the DOJ claims underscored that these communications were not genuine requests for legal advice but rather "an effort to hide potential evidence".
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 24 2022, @03:28AM (2 children)
So you're saying... they need to do a Google search.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 24 2022, @04:40AM (1 child)
Has anyone even seen the documents? Even when they are public, and not hidden, seems nobody bothers to look. For example, the most recent SoylentNews financial report (already some years old) lists over a thousand dollars paid for "professional fees". What profession was that, and in whose name were they paid? No wonder our "hosting expenses" have increased so much of late.
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday March 24 2022, @07:26AM
We have to employ a certified accountant and might sometimes need legal advice. I believe that the law demands that of us. Nobody working on this site - from the board downwards - has ever taken any any reward, financial or otherwise, for their efforts. Our original stakeholders are still unpaid.
We make this quite clear here [soylentnews.org].
Why might we need legal advice? Well imagine if someone did something silly that could result in someone else taking legal action against us then we might want to know what our legal exposure would be under those circumstances. Yeah, I know, that would never happen would it?
I know that you are only stirring the pot - but if you are looking at the financial report the front page tells you the name of the organisation in whose name they are paid. I notice that you conveniently omitted the length of time that payment covered. It also states the name of the member of the board who signed them off, if i recall correctly.