Donato stated in his decision that Google gave nearly 360 employees complete discretion over whether or not to keep chat histories. The Department of Justice explained in a separate filing over the same complaint that the tech giant’s internal chatroom, which is used to discuss “substantive and sensitive business,” is set to delete chat messages within 24 hours by default. When the agency “reasonably anticipated [the] litigation” in 2019, it expected Google to change its chat history setting, but it allegedly left the decision to individual employees.
