A report by the New York Times claims that Google instructed employees to delete messages and avoid certain language to prevent antitrust lawsuits.

Since 2008, amidst scrutiny over an advertising deal with Yahoo, Google reportedly advised staff to steer clear of speculation and sarcasm in communications.

Instant message settings were often set to 'off the record', automatically deleting potentially problematic phrases.

Evidence from three antitrust trials revealed Google's efforts to limit internal communication visibility.

Employees were encouraged to label documents as 'attorney-client privileged' and include Google lawyers in communications, even without legal relevance.

Despite U.S. laws mandating the preservation of documents for litigation, Google exempted instant messages from automatic legal holds, relying on employees to manually preserve relevant chats, which rarely happened.

Judges criticized Google's practices, with Judge James Donato calling out a 'systemic culture of suppression'.

Google's document retention policies faced accusations of evidence destruction in legal cases.

Google's top lawyer, Kent Walker, testified that the company initially felt overwhelmed by document preservation demands.

In response, Google changed its procedures in the previous year to save all communications by default, including chats.