Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is set to be called by Epic Games Inc. to testify in an antitrust trial over Google Play policies that could threaten billions of dollars in revenue generated by the app marketplace.
Google Emails, Memos Hidden From Web as DOJ Caves to Pressure
21.09.2023 - 14:21 / tech.hindustantimes.com / Bill Gates
The US Department of Justice has removed public access to emails, charts and internal presentations from Alphabet Inc.'s Google that had come out as evidence in its landmark antitrust lawsuit against the tech titan.
Google had challenged the government's posting of the documents online, and the court was sympathetic to its concerns. The result: a trial much more difficult for the public to follow than the similarly monumental and widely watched antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s.
The trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks, is the biggest legal reckoning for a big tech company since then. With all the exhibits and evidence unearthed for discussion, it's also a rare look at the inner workings of one of the most influential businesses of the modern era.
As the Justice Department presented its case, it published exhibits used in court, which aren't otherwise accessible to the public apart from in-person attendance. The site used to include a section on trial exhibits with links to the documents; those links have since been removed. Google itself has also routinely made trial materials public after several days of court hearings, including the full presentation from its opening statement.
Though Judge Amit Mehta, who is presiding over the trial, said he would make a ruling on the public's access to evidence presented in court on Wednesday, the exhibits remain offline and the court hasn't said when or whether they will be reposted. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday on when exhibits might be again made available.
The court exhibits are likely to eventually become part of the public record — which Google took issue with, saying that, for instance, employees' email addresses or phone numbers would be revealed.
It's a far cry from the Microsoft trial in the late 1990s, when every major news organization covered the hearings daily. Back then, Microsoft was unmatched as an iconic tech company, and its chairman, Bill Gates, was as ubiquitous as the basketball star Michael Jordan. That trial, which lasted over eight months, saw news outlets giving the proceedings about as much scrutiny as the Clinton impeachment. When a federal appeals court agreed in 1999 to make Gates' infamous deposition public, it was seen as a win for the public's right to information.
During the Tuesday testimony of Michael Roszak, Google's vice president for finance, the Justice Department sought to offer notes that he had made during a July 2017 training Google offered on communications. Among the notes, he wrote: “Google is able to ignore demand and focus on supply.” Roszak began testifying about the document in open court on Tuesday afternoon, saying the statements in it were “full of hyperbole
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