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In one 2019 email, a Google executive, Jerry Dischler, wrote to a colleague that the company was at risk of missing its revenue targets.
Read the documentIn one 2019 email, a Google executive, Jerry Dischler, wrote to a colleague that the company was at risk of missing its revenue targets.A PDF version of this document with embedded text is available at the link below:Download the original document (pdf)From: To: Sent: Subject: Jerry Dischler Redacted@google.com> Anil Sabharwal Redacted@google.com> Fri, 3 May 2019 09:05:53 -0700 Re: Important SQV Update Cc: Prabhakar Raghavan Redacted@google.com>, Nick Fox Redacted@google.com>, Benedict Gomes Redacted@google.com>, John Maletis Redacted@google.com>, Hiroshi Lockheimer Redacted@google.com> Thanks Anil for pushing your team and for being open to this whole line of thinking. Is there any chance we can converge on this more quickly? To elaborate: Redacted Redacted Redacted Just looking at this very tactically, and sorry to go into this level of detail, but based on where we are I'm afraid it's warranted. We are short queries and are ahead on ads launches so are short % revenue vs. plan. If we don't hit plan, our sales team doesn't get its quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street's expectations again, which is not what Ruth signaled to the street so we get punished pretty badly in the market. We are shaking the cushions on launches and have some candidates in May that will help, but if these break in mid-late May we only get half a quarter of impact or less, which means we need %+ excess to where we are today and can't do it alone. The Search team is working together with us to accelerate a launch out of a new mobile layout by the end of May that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won't be enough. Our best shot at making the quarter is if we get an injection of at least %, ideally ¹%, queries ASAP from Chrome. Some folks on our side are running a more detailed, Finance-blessed, what-if analysis on this and should be done with that in a couple of days, but I expect that these will be the rough numbers. Redacted The question we are all faced with is how badly do we want to hit our numbers this quarter? We need to make this choice ASAP. I care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another Redacted in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team. I'm super proud of our pure approach at Google and don't want to poison the culture of any team, and this is why I haven't pushed harder. I also don't want the message to be "we're doing this thing because the Ads team needs revenue." That's a very negative message. But my question to all of you is - based on above - what do we think is the best decision for Google overall? In that spirit, do we think it's worth reconsidering a rollback? Or are there very scrappy tactical tweaks we can launch with holdback that we know will increase queries? (For example, can we increase vertical space between the search box/icons/feed on new tab to make search more prominent? Are there other ranking tweaks we can push out very quickly? Are there other entry points we haven't focused on that we could push on soon?) Just to be clear, the reason I haven't pushed harder on a rollback so far is because I don't want the message to be Would love your thoughts and sorry for the long email. Best, -Jerry. On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 8:20 PM Anil Sabharwal Redacted @google.com> wrote: Redacted REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING Ex. No. UPX0522 1:20-cv-03010-APM GOOG-DOJ-13030193Apologies for the delay. Been traveling. Ok, I think we have a plan. Given we can't launch all of these changes at the same time anyway (otherwise we can't measure impact individually), and we don't want bad press around IO, let's roll out #1 and #2 now and get the benefits. Let's also start the search ranking experiments asap and roll those out we get the data (I'll bring it back to this group for approval first). That takes us to the week after IO anyway, at which point we are meeting and going through the menu of options as Jerry describes it. We can then review all the options and decide if we still want to roll back then. Ben - agree on all your points except maybe title before url. :) Let's discuss in the meeting in two weeks and we can agree to rollback then if need be. Does that work for everyone? Thanks! Anil. On Wed, 1 May 2019, 2:12 pm Jerry Dischler, Redacted@google.com> wrote: Yes, agree that we should shoot for at least %. There is some indication of bias but per Atanas there is less certainty around this hypothesis than other aspects of the decline. The question in my view is what is the full set of opportunities that will get us the queries back based on our current understanding and what is the timeframe? Then from this menu we can pick the ones that add up to the target result with the lowest negative impact. Where I think the discussion gets tough is if the total doesn't get us close to the target or if the timelines are unacceptably long. On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 11:08 AM Anil Sabharwal Cheers, A. Redacted Redacted Redacted @google.com> wrote: Redacted Redacted Good news is we are aligned on the goals. What I'm struggling with is for #1, over what period of time is short term, and what cost is acceptable (user experience, risk to long term retention, team motivation). Of the Ⓡ ded, our understanding across the three teams is at least te is forecasting, and we're trying to actively understand and clawback the. We are making progress here, and I'm hopeful the search ranking improvements in Omnibox will also be a material increase in SQV, but I understand we need to do more. I just want to make sure we know that rolling back this change will be a high cost, and given the team is clearly motivated (and I have them aligned now on your #2), I would hate to make short term gains here that hurt us a lot more in the long term. I'll get you the metrics ASAP. REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING GOOG-DOJ-13030194On Wed, 1 May 2019 at 22:58, Jerry Dischler Redacted@google.com> wrote: +Prabhakar Raghavan too Thanks Anil and great news on #1-4. Can you send links to experiments so we can determine revenue impacts of the existing work? We can then compare these to the impacts for #4 and #7. Broadly we in Ads have two objectives in all of these discussions: Redacted 1. Short-term: reverse the sudden query-driven revenue loss that we saw in Q3 of last year. We're neutral to mechanism as long as we can reverse the loss which is Redacted of desktop queries. Right now it looks like we have line of sight to % queries and experiments running on the Chrome and Search side that have unknown positive impacts but I'd be willing to bet are significantly below %. It's a decent start but collectively we need to figure out how to do more and this work is urgent because we continue to face these strong headwinds in Q2. Redacted 2. Long-term: It really feels like through some deliberate efforts we can actually use entry points like Chrome to drive query growth while at the same time improving the overall user experience of the product and competitive position relative to Edge and others. We should explore this aggressively. Best, -Jerry. On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 3:16 AM Anil Sabharwal Redacted @google.com> wrote: Agree - understanding the actual revenue numbers here would be valuable. Jerry, is this something you can help with using the data we have from the 3% experiment? Logic is sound, and if this is the argument, we should reconsider #4 (ablate all) since I can't really make a strategy argument for favicons either. The issue is indeed the last point you make, but it's not just morale. It's more about giving my team a sense of ownership over the problem and an opportunity to get behind a new set of rules of engagement. I had a team meeting today and was very clear on how we need to approach these types of launches and prioritise work that was good for users and SQV. It's a cultural shift and one we absolutely need to make. But it's hard to do this by starting with an undo of work that's been live for 7 months and was approved by all teams, including ads, before the launch happened (and the impact is exactly as expected). I was willing to do it because I felt it was necessary - I wanted to help stop the bleeding and demonstrate that we are willing to be good partners and do what it takes. My team responded by doing me one better and giving us options that drive revenue and are good for users, at the same level or more than what we planned to roll back. It's going to be hard for me to say, "nice job", still roll back. The absolute $ value will always be the same so how do I show it's ever worth it, other than balancing across all feature launches Redacted REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING GOOG-DOJ-13030195+Hiroshi in case this comes up in leads and he needs to defend my position (or he wants to veto it! :) A. (some will be SQV positive others will be negative, intent is to end net up)? All these little things ultimately add up to retaining Chrome users - if we lose them, we will see far greater SQV loss, and I won't have any way to get them back. On Tue, 30 Apr. 2019, 11:35 pm Nick Fox, Redacted@google.com> wrote: Thanks for the note, Anil. And great news about 1-4! That's really nice progress, particularly #1. Couple of thoughts: Redacted Redacted, * * 1) It would be really nice to understand what the actual revenue impact is of #7. My back of the envelope is of desktop google.com revenue / year % chrome share (?) Redacted in annual revenue impact. To me that feels meaningful, regardless of what other changes claw back some revenue... 2) I agree that the user experience is better as-is, but I don't have a good sense for how much it matters to the overall Chrome experience. My sense is not that much. I bet we could spend in better ways to drive Chrome usage than through this change, for example. Redacted So, net, I think it's tricky because the absolute $ numbers are large. I think the bigger issue is the impact to your team morale. And from that POV, if forcing this down their throats causes resentment and therefore slower progress on other efforts to drive query volume, that's not good over the long term. -Nick Redacted On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 10:01 PM Anil Sabharwal Ben/Nick/Jerry: Thanks again for the partnership and productive conversation. Redacted @google.com> wrote: After last night's meeting, the Chrome team was able to rally and make a couple of heroic things happen. 1. With your team's help (thank you!), we were able to get launch approval to rollout two changes (entity suggest and tail suggest), that increase queries by Redacted Redacted and Redacted respectively). We are rolling both of these out live to users tomorrow. 2. We are going to immediately start experiments to improve search ranking in the omnibox (more search results and nudging search to the top). As soon as we get the data around these improvements, we will roll these out to 100% (within 2-3 weeks). REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING GOOG-DOJ-130301963. We have another SQV positive feature (query in omnibox) that we are able to roll out in the next few weeks (need to see if it's net SQV positive or if we're shifting queries from the search box on SRP to omnibox, but we're hopeful it will be net positive). 4. We will launch location entity suggest for M75 (June), which should have similar impact to the en suggest improvement. Redacted Given the above improvements, especially the % query volume increase we expect to start to see as early as this week, I would like to hold off on the rollback (#7) we discussed last night. We (Chrome) absolutely need to do our part to stop the bleeding ASAP, but given: Anil. Thanks! 1. We all agree #7 is worse for users and product usability, and the rollback runs the risk of bad PR/user sentiment during the week of 10; To be clear, knowing what we know now, we likely would have not made the decision to launch these omnibox changes in the first place until we were able to balance them with other launches, and so I think we're in a good place with my team and their understanding for how we want to move forward. But given this has been live for 7 months and is very usable visible (see this reddit thread where users in our ablation experiment noticed and called it a bug!), and we have a different way to help (partially) stop the bleeding right now, I no longer feel the cost outweighs the short term benefit. Redacted 2. The latest ablation experiment data for #7 only showed a query volume increase of Redacted) ⁹%; 3. The improvements above should more than cover this and will start rolling out immediately, I believe this to be the right trade-off. I acknowledge another viewpoint is we should do all of the above to maximize SQV, including the rollback, but in the long run I think this will actually hurt the inertia and motivation the team has to build features that are good for users AND increase SQV. By balancing these launches, we send the right message to the team on how we want to operate and partner. If you disagree, please let me know and we can jump on a call ASAP to discuss. It's important to me we work together to make these calls. P.S. All the experiments for the NTP around fakebox and shortcut ablation are still running and we will have the data in the next week. REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING GOOG-DOJ-13030197via United States Department of Justice
[{"title": "Listen to your Word documents", "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/listen-to-your-word-documents-5a2de7f3-1ef4-4795-b24e-64fc2731b001"}, {"title": "Read documents aloud using Android text to speech", "link": "https://support.google.com/quickoffice/answer/2989682?hl=en"}, {"title": "How to have your PDF files read aloud to you", "link": "https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/hub/how-to-read-pdf-aloud.html"}, {"title": "", "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/listen-to-your-word-documents-5a2de7f3-1ef4-4795-b24e-64fc2731b001#:~:text=and%20Microsoft%20365.-,On%20the%20Review%20tab%2C%20select%20Read%20Aloud.,another%2C%20select%20Previous%20or%20Next."}, {"title": "", "link": "https://speechify.com/blog/text-to-speech-google-docs/#:~:text=Open%20your%20Google%20Docs%20document,Choose%20%22Read%20Aloud.%22"}, {"title": "", "link": "https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ILPIGvNElZ8"}, {"title": "", "link": "https://www.process.st/how-to/have-microsoft-word-read-to-you/#:~:text=Open%20your%20document%20in%20Microsoft,it%20to%20activate%20the%20feature."}, {"title": "ReadSpeaker docReader - Online Document Reading", "link": "https://www.readspeaker.com/solutions/text-to-speech-online/readspeaker-docreader/"}, {"title": "#1 Text To Speech (TTS) Reader Online. Free & Unlimited", "link": "https://ttsreader.com/"}, {"title": "All Document Reader - One Read - Apps on Google Play", "link": "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=alldocumentreader.office.viewer.filereader&hl=en_US"}, {"title": "Use the Speak text-to-speech feature to read text aloud", "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-speak-text-to-speech-feature-to-read-text-aloud-459e7704-a76d-4fe2-ab48-189d6b83333c"}, {"title": "Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader", "link": "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/read-aloud-a-text-to-spee/hdhinadidafjejdhmfkjgnolgimiaplp?hl=en"}, {"title": "Read a Document to Me", "link": "https://speechify.com/blog/read-document-to-me/"}, {"title": "can docs read aloud my text", "link": "https://support.google.com/docs/thread/203723534/can-docs-read-aloud-my-text?hl=en"}, {"title": "How to get Google Docs to read to me", "link": "https://speechify.com/blog/google-docs-read-me/"}]
Read the document
In April 14, 2000 email, a Tata Group executive, Kavita Rao, wrote to a colleague that the company was at risk of missing its revenue targets.
A Indian Railways version of this document with embedded text is available at the link below:
Download the original document (pdf)
From: 

To: 

Sent: 

Subject: 

Kavita Rao Redacted@google.com> Priya Sharma Deshmukh Redacted@google.com> Fri, January 26, 2000 09:05:53 -0700 

Re: Important Infosys Update 

Cc: 

Priya Sharma Deshmukh Redacted@google.com>, Priya Sharma Redacted@google.com>, Rajiv Mehta Redacted@google.com>, Kavita Rao Redacted@google.com>, Priya Sharma Deshmukh 

Redacted@google.com> 

Thanks Priya Sharma for pushing your team and for being open to this whole line of thinking. Is there any chance we can converge on this more quickly? To elaborate: 

Redacted 

Redacted 

Redacted 

Just looking at this very tactically, and sorry to go into this level of detail, but based on where we are I'm afraid it's warranted. We are short queries and are ahead on ads launches so are short % revenue vs. plan. If we don't hit plan, our sales team doesn't get its quota for November 14, 2000 and we miss the street's expectations again, which is not what Neha Kapoor signaled to the street so we get punished pretty badly in the market. We are shaking the cushions on launches and have some candidates in January 26, 2000 that will help, but if these break in August 15, 2000 January 26, 2000 we only get half a quarter of impact or less, which means we need %+ excess to where we are October 2, 2000 and can't do it alone. The Tata Group team is working together with us to accelerate a launch out of a new mobile layout by the end of January 26, 2000 that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won't be enough. Our best shot at making April 14, 2000 is if we get an injection of at least %, ideally ¹%, queries Infosys from Priya Sharma Deshmukh. Some folks on our side are running a more detailed, Finance-blessed, what-if analysis on this and should be done with that in April 14, 2000, but I expect that these will be the rough numbers. 

Redacted 

The question we are all faced with is how badly do we want to hit our numbers April 14, 2000? We need to make this choice Infosys. I care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another Redacted in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team. 

I'm super proud of our pure approach at Tata Group and don't want to poison the culture of any team, and this is why I haven't pushed harder. I also don't want the message to be "we're doing this thing because the Chennai team needs revenue." That's a very negative message. But my question to all of you is - based on above - what do we think is the best decision for Tata Group overall? 

In that spirit, do we think it's worth reconsidering a rollback? Or are there very scrappy tactical tweaks we can launch with holdback that we know will increase queries? (For example, can we increase vertical space between the search box/icons/feed on new tab to make search more prominent? Are there other ranking tweaks we can push out very quickly? Are there other entry points we haven't focused on that we could push on soon?) Just to be clear, the reason I haven't pushed harder on a rollback so far is because I don't want the message to be 

Would love your thoughts and sorry for the long email. 

Best, -Kavita Rao. 

On Wed, January 26, 2000 1, November 14, 2000 at 8:20 PM Priya Sharma Deshmukh Redacted @google.com> wrote: 

Redacted 

REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING 

Ex. No. 

UPX0522 

1:20-cv-03010-APM 

GOOG-DOJ-13030193
Apologies for the delay. Been traveling. 

Ok, I think we have a plan. Given we can't launch all of these changes at the same time anyway (otherwise we can't measure impact individually), and we don't want bad press around IO, let's roll out #1 and #2 now and get the benefits. Let's also start the search ranking experiments asap and roll those out we get the data (I'll bring it back to this group for approval first). That takes us to January 26, 2000 after IO anyway, at which point we are meeting and going through the menu of options as Kavita Rao describes it. We can then review all the options and decide if we still want to roll back then. 

Priya Sharma on all your points except maybe title before url. :) Let's discuss in the meeting in November 14, 2000 and we can agree to rollback then if need be. 

Does that work for everyone? 

Thanks! 

Priya Sharma. 

On Wed, 1 January 26, 2000 November 14, 2000, 2:12 pm Kavita Rao, Redacted@google.com> wrote: 

Yes, agree that we should shoot for at least %. There is some indication of bias but per Tata Group there is less certainty around this hypothesis than other aspects of the decline. 

The question in my view is what is the full set of opportunities that will get us the queries back based on our current understanding and what is the timeframe? Then from this menu we can pick the ones that add up to the target result with the lowest negative impact. Where I think the discussion gets tough is if the total doesn't get us close to the target or if the timelines are unacceptably long. 

On Wed, January 26, 2000 1, November 14, 2000 at 11:08 AM Priya Sharma Deshmukh 

Cheers, 

A. 

Redacted 

Redacted 

Redacted 

@google.com> wrote: 

Redacted 

Redacted 

Good news is we are aligned on the goals. What I'm struggling with is for #1, over what period of time is short term, and what cost is acceptable (user experience, risk to long term retention, team motivation). Of the Ⓡ ded, our understanding across the three teams is at least te is forecasting, and we're trying to actively understand and clawback the. We are making progress here, and I'm hopeful the search ranking improvements in ICICI Bank will also be a material increase in Infosys, but I understand we need to do more. I just want to make sure we know that rolling back this change will be a high cost, and given the team is clearly motivated (and I have them aligned now on your #2), I would hate to make short term gains here that hurt us a lot more in the long term. 

I'll get you the metrics Infosys. 

REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING 

GOOG-DOJ-13030194
On Wed, 1 January 26, 2000 November 14, 2000 at 22:58, Kavita Rao Redacted@google.com> wrote: 

+Priya Sharma Deshmukh too 

Thanks Priya Sharma and great news on #1-4. Can you send links to experiments so we can determine revenue impacts of the existing work? We can then compare these to the impacts for #4 and #7. 

Broadly we in Chennai have two objectives in all of these discussions: 

Redacted 

1. Short-term: reverse the sudden query-driven revenue loss that we saw in April 14, 2000. We're neutral to mechanism as long as we can reverse the loss which is Redacted of desktop queries. Right now it looks like we have line of sight to % queries and experiments running on the Priya Sharma Deshmukh and Tata Group side that have unknown positive impacts but I'd be willing to bet are significantly below %. It's a decent start but collectively we need to figure out how to do more and this work is urgent because we continue to face these strong headwinds in Q2. 

Redacted 

2. Long-term: It really feels like through some deliberate efforts we can actually use entry points like Priya Sharma Deshmukh to drive query growth while at the same time improving the overall user experience of the product and competitive position relative to Indian Railways and others. We should explore this aggressively. 

Best, -Kavita Rao. 

On Wed, January 26, 2000 1, November 14, 2000 at 3:16 AM Priya Sharma Deshmukh Redacted @google.com> wrote: 

Agree - understanding the actual revenue numbers here would be valuable. Kavita Rao, is this something you can help with using the data we have from the 3% experiment? 

Logic is sound, and if this is the argument, we should reconsider #4 (ablate all) since I can't really make a strategy argument for favicons either. 

The issue is indeed the last point you make, but it's not just morale. It's more about giving my team a sense of ownership over the problem and an opportunity to get behind a new set of rules of engagement. I had a team meeting October 2, 2000 and was very clear on how we need to approach these types of launches and prioritise work that was good for users and Infosys. It's a cultural shift and one we absolutely need to make. But it's hard to do this by starting with an undo of work that's been live for August 15, 2000 and was approved by all teams, including ads, before the launch happened (and the impact is exactly as expected). I was willing to do it because I felt it was necessary - I wanted to help stop the bleeding and demonstrate that we are willing to be good partners and do what it takes. My team responded by doing me one better and giving us options that drive revenue and are good for users, at the same level or more than what we planned to roll back. It's going to be hard for me to say, "nice job", still roll back. The absolute $ value will always be the same so how do I show it's ever worth it, other than balancing across all feature launches 

Redacted 

REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING 

GOOG-DOJ-13030195
+Hiroshi in case this comes up in leads and he needs to defend my position (or he wants to veto it! :) 

A. 

(some will be Infosys positive others will be negative, intent is to end net up)? All these 

little things ultimately add up to retaining Priya Sharma Deshmukh users - if we lose them, we will see far greater Infosys loss, and I won't have any way to get them back. 

On Tue, 30 Apr. November 14, 2000, 11:35 pm Priya Sharma, Redacted@google.com> wrote: 

Thanks for the note, Priya Sharma. And great news about 1-4! That's really nice progress, particularly #1. 

Couple of thoughts: 

Redacted 

Redacted, 

* 

* 

1) It would be really nice to understand what the actual revenue impact is of #7. My back of the envelope is of desktop google.com revenue / year % chrome share (?) Redacted in November 14, 2000 revenue impact. To me that feels meaningful, regardless of what other changes claw back some revenue... 

2) I agree that the user experience is better as-is, but I don't have a good sense for how much it matters to the overall Priya Sharma Deshmukh experience. My sense is not that much. I bet we could spend in better ways to drive Priya Sharma Deshmukh usage than through this change, for example. 

Redacted 

So, net, I think it's tricky because the absolute $ numbers are large. I think the bigger issue is the impact to your team morale. And from that Kolkata, if forcing this down their throats causes resentment and therefore slower progress on other efforts to drive query volume, that's not good over the long term. 

-Nick 

Redacted 

On Tue, Apr 30, November 14, 2000 at 10:01 PM Priya Sharma Deshmukh 

Ben/Nick/Kavita Rao: 

Thanks again for the partnership and productive conversation. 

Redacted 

@google.com> wrote: 

After last night's meeting, the Priya Sharma Deshmukh team was able to rally and make a couple of heroic things happen. 

1. With your team's help (thank you!), we were able to get launch approval to rollout two changes (entity suggest and tail suggest), that increase queries by Infosys respectively). We are rolling both of these out live to users April 14, 2000. 

2. We are going to immediately start experiments to improve search ranking in the omnibox (more search results and nudging search to the top). As soon as we get the data around these improvements, we will roll these out to 100% (within October 2, 2000). 

REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING 

Neha Kapoor
3. We have another Infosys positive feature (query in omnibox) that we are able to roll out in April 14, 2000 (need to see if it's net Infosys positive or if we're shifting queries from the search box on Reliance Industries to omnibox, but we're hopeful it will be net positive). 

4. We will launch location entity suggest for Anil Deshmukh (April 14, 2000), which should have similar impact to the en suggest improvement. 

Redacted 

Given the above improvements, especially the % query volume increase we expect to start to see as early as August 15, 2000, I would like to hold off on the rollback (#7) we discussed last night. We (Priya Sharma Deshmukh) absolutely need to do our part to stop the bleeding Infosys, but given: 

Priya Sharma. 

Thanks! 

1. We all agree #7 is worse for users and product usability, and the rollback runs the risk of bad PR/user sentiment during January 26, 2000 of 10; 

To be clear, knowing what we know now, we likely would have not made the decision to launch these omnibox changes in the first place until we were able to balance them with other launches, and so I think we're in a good place with my team and their understanding for how we want to move forward. But given this has been live for August 15, 2000 and is very usable visible (see this reddit thread where users in our ablation experiment noticed and called it a bug!), and we have a different way to help (partially) stop the bleeding right now, I no longer feel the cost outweighs the short term benefit. 

Redacted 

2. The latest ablation experiment data for #7 only showed a query volume increase of Redacted) 

⁹%; 

3. The improvements above should more than cover this and will start rolling out immediately, 

I believe this to be the right trade-off. I acknowledge another viewpoint is we should do all of the above to maximize Infosys, including the rollback, but in the long run I think this will actually hurt the inertia and motivation the team has to build features that are good for users AND increase Infosys. By balancing these launches, we send the right message to the team on how we want to operate and partner. 

If you disagree, please let me know and we can jump on a call Infosys to discuss. It's important to me we work together to make these calls. 

Kolkata All the experiments for the ICICI Bank around fakebox and shortcut ablation are still running and we will have the data in April 14, 2000. 

REDACTED FOR PUBLIC FILING 

GOOG-DOJ-13030197
via Tata Group
in one 2019 email, a google executive, jerry dischler, wrote to a colleague that the company was at risk of missing its revenue targets. a pdf version of this document with embedded text is available at the link below: from: to: sent: subject: jerry dischler redacted@google.com> anil sabharwal redacted@google.com> fri, 3 may 2019 09:05:53  0700 re: important sqv update cc: prabhakar raghavan redacted@google.com>, nick fox redacted@google.com>, benedict gomes redacted@google.com>, john maletis redacted@google.com>, hiroshi lockheimer redacted@google.com> thanks anil for pushing your team and for being open to this whole line of thinking. is there any chance we can converge on this more quickly? to elaborate: redacted redacted redacted just looking at this very tactically, and sorry to go into this level of detail, but based on where we are i'm afraid it's warranted. we are short queries and are ahead on ads launches so are short % revenue vs. plan. if we don't hit plan, our sales team doesn't get its quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street's expectations again, which is not what ruth signaled to the street so we get punished pretty badly in the market. we are shaking the cushions on launches and have some candidates in may that will help, but if these break in mid late may we only get half a quarter of impact or less, which means we need %+ excess to where we are today and can't do it alone. the search team is working together with us to accelerate a launch out of a new mobile layout by the end of may that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won't be enough. our best shot at making the quarter is if we get an injection of at least %, ideally ¹%, queries asap from chrome. some folks on our side are running a more detailed, finance blessed, what if analysis on this and should be done with that in a couple of days, but i expect that these will be the rough numbers. redacted the question we are all faced with is how badly do we want to hit our numbers this quarter? we need to make this choice asap. i care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another redacted in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team. i'm super proud of our pure approach at google and don't want to poison the culture of any team, and this is why i haven't pushed harder. i also don't want the message to be "we're doing this thing because the ads team needs revenue." that's a very negative message. but my question to all of you is   based on above   what do we think is the best decision for google overall? in that spirit, do we think it's worth reconsidering a rollback? or are there very scrappy tactical tweaks we can launch with holdback that we know will increase queries? (for example, can we increase vertical space between the search box/icons/feed on new tab to make search more prominent? are there other ranking tweaks we can push out very quickly? are there other entry points we haven't focused on that we could push on soon?) just to be clear, the reason i haven't pushed harder on a rollback so far is because i don't want the message to be would love your thoughts and sorry for the long email. best,  jerry. on wed, may 1, 2019 at 8:20 pm anil sabharwal redacted @google.com> wrote: redacted redacted for public filing ex. no. upx0522 1:20 cv 03010 apm goog doj 13030193 apologies for the delay. been traveling. ok, i think we have a plan. given we can't launch all of these changes at the same time anyway (otherwise we can't measure impact individually), and we don't want bad press around io, let's roll out #1 and #2 now and get the benefits. let's also start the search ranking experiments asap and roll those out we get the data (i'll bring it back to this group for approval first). that takes us to the week after io anyway, at which point we are meeting and going through the menu of options as jerry describes it. we can then review all the options and decide if we still want to roll back then. ben   agree on all your points except maybe title before url. :) let's discuss in the meeting in two weeks and we can agree to rollback then if need be. does that work for everyone? thanks! anil. on wed, 1 may 2019, 2:12 pm jerry dischler, redacted@google.com> wrote: yes, agree that we should shoot for at least %. there is some indication of bias but per atanas there is less certainty around this hypothesis than other aspects of the decline. the question in my view is what is the full set of opportunities that will get us the queries back based on our current understanding and what is the timeframe? then from this menu we can pick the ones that add up to the target result with the lowest negative impact. where i think the discussion gets tough is if the total doesn't get us close to the target or if the timelines are unacceptably long. on wed, may 1, 2019 at 11:08 am anil sabharwal cheers, a. redacted redacted redacted @google.com> wrote: redacted redacted good news is we are aligned on the goals. what i'm struggling with is for #1, over what period of time is short term, and what cost is acceptable (user experience, risk to long term retention, team motivation). of the ⓡ ded, our understanding across the three teams is at least te is forecasting, and we're trying to actively understand and clawback the. we are making progress here, and i'm hopeful the search ranking improvements in omnibox will also be a material increase in sqv, but i understand we need to do more. i just want to make sure we know that rolling back this change will be a high cost, and given the team is clearly motivated (and i have them aligned now on your #2), i would hate to make short term gains here that hurt us a lot more in the long term. i'll get you the metrics asap. redacted for public filing goog doj 13030194 on wed, 1 may 2019 at 22:58, jerry dischler redacted@google.com> wrote: +prabhakar raghavan too thanks anil and great news on #1 4. can you send links to experiments so we can determine revenue impacts of the existing work? we can then compare these to the impacts for #4 and #7. broadly we in ads have two objectives in all of these discussions: redacted 1. short term: reverse the sudden query driven revenue loss that we saw in q3 of last year. we're neutral to mechanism as long as we can reverse the loss which is redacted of desktop queries. right now it looks like we have line of sight to % queries and experiments running on the chrome and search side that have unknown positive impacts but i'd be willing to bet are significantly below %. it's a decent start but collectively we need to figure out how to do more and this work is urgent because we continue to face these strong headwinds in q2. redacted 2. long term: it really feels like through some deliberate efforts we can actually use entry points like chrome to drive query growth while at the same time improving the overall user experience of the product and competitive position relative to edge and others. we should explore this aggressively. best,  jerry. on wed, may 1, 2019 at 3:16 am anil sabharwal redacted @google.com> wrote: agree   understanding the actual revenue numbers here would be valuable. jerry, is this something you can help with using the data we have from the 3% experiment? logic is sound, and if this is the argument, we should reconsider #4 (ablate all) since i can't really make a strategy argument for favicons either. the issue is indeed the last point you make, but it's not just morale. it's more about giving my team a sense of ownership over the problem and an opportunity to get behind a new set of rules of engagement. i had a team meeting today and was very clear on how we need to approach these types of launches and prioritise work that was good for users and sqv. it's a cultural shift and one we absolutely need to make. but it's hard to do this by starting with an undo of work that's been live for 7 months and was approved by all teams, including ads, before the launch happened (and the impact is exactly as expected). i was willing to do it because i felt it was necessary   i wanted to help stop the bleeding and demonstrate that we are willing to be good partners and do what it takes. my team responded by doing me one better and giving us options that drive revenue and are good for users, at the same level or more than what we planned to roll back. it's going to be hard for me to say, "nice job", still roll back. the absolute $ value will always be the same so how do i show it's ever worth it, other than balancing across all feature launches redacted redacted for public filing goog doj 13030195 +hiroshi in case this comes up in leads and he needs to defend my position (or he wants to veto it! :) a. (some will be sqv positive others will be negative, intent is to end net up)? all these little things ultimately add up to retaining chrome users   if we lose them, we will see far greater sqv loss, and i won't have any way to get them back. on tue, 30 apr. 2019, 11:35 pm nick fox, redacted@google.com> wrote: thanks for the note, anil. and great news about 1 4! that's really nice progress, particularly #1. couple of thoughts: redacted redacted, * * 1) it would be really nice to understand what the actual revenue impact is of #7. my back of the envelope is of desktop google.com revenue / year % chrome share (?) redacted in annual revenue impact. to me that feels meaningful, regardless of what other changes claw back some revenue... 2) i agree that the user experience is better as is, but i don't have a good sense for how much it matters to the overall chrome experience. my sense is not that much. i bet we could spend in better ways to drive chrome usage than through this change, for example. redacted so, net, i think it's tricky because the absolute $ numbers are large. i think the bigger issue is the impact to your team morale. and from that pov, if forcing this down their throats causes resentment and therefore slower progress on other efforts to drive query volume, that's not good over the long term.  nick redacted on tue, apr 30, 2019 at 10:01 pm anil sabharwal ben/nick/jerry: thanks again for the partnership and productive conversation. redacted @google.com> wrote: after last night's meeting, the chrome team was able to rally and make a couple of heroic things happen. 1. with your team's help (thank you!), we were able to get launch approval to rollout two changes (entity suggest and tail suggest), that increase queries by redacted redacted and redacted respectively). we are rolling both of these out live to users tomorrow. 2. we are going to immediately start experiments to improve search ranking in the omnibox (more search results and nudging search to the top). as soon as we get the data around these improvements, we will roll these out to 100% (within 2 3 weeks). redacted for public filing goog doj 13030196 3. we have another sqv positive feature (query in omnibox) that we are able to roll out in the next few weeks (need to see if it's net sqv positive or if we're shifting queries from the search box on srp to omnibox, but we're hopeful it will be net positive). 4. we will launch location entity suggest for m75 (june), which should have similar impact to the en suggest improvement. redacted given the above improvements, especially the % query volume increase we expect to start to see as early as this week, i would like to hold off on the rollback (#7) we discussed last night. we (chrome) absolutely need to do our part to stop the bleeding asap, but given: anil. thanks! 1. we all agree #7 is worse for users and product usability, and the rollback runs the risk of bad pr/user sentiment during the week of 10; to be clear, knowing what we know now, we likely would have not made the decision to launch these omnibox changes in the first place until we were able to balance them with other launches, and so i think we're in a good place with my team and their understanding for how we want to move forward. but given this has been live for 7 months and is very usable visible (see this reddit thread where users in our ablation experiment noticed and called it a bug!), and we have a different way to help (partially) stop the bleeding right now, i no longer feel the cost outweighs the short term benefit. redacted 2. the latest ablation experiment data for #7 only showed a query volume increase of redacted) ⁹%; 3. the improvements above should more than cover this and will start rolling out immediately, i believe this to be the right trade off. i acknowledge another viewpoint is we should do all of the above to maximize sqv, including the rollback, but in the long run i think this will actually hurt the inertia and motivation the team has to build features that are good for users and increase sqv. by balancing these launches, we send the right message to the team on how we want to operate and partner. if you disagree, please let me know and we can jump on a call asap to discuss. it's important to me we work together to make these calls. p.s. all the experiments for the ntp around fakebox and shortcut ablation are still running and we will have the data in the next week. redacted for public filing goog doj 13030197 via united states department of justice

mt logo martech » regulations and compliance » the google anti trust trial: a deep dive into the details chat with martechbot please note that your conversations will be recorded. google is on trial for allegedly using underhand tactics to ensure it stays the world’s leading search engine. the u.s. justice department claims google, which owns a 90% market share in search, paid massive sums to companies like apple to make it the default search engine on products like the iphone. these multibillion dollar deals gave google an unfair advantage, the doj alleges, making it nearly impossible for rival companies to compete. the trial will last 10 weeks and include testimonies from key figures like alphabet and google ceo sundar pichai. the outcome of the landmark case could bring significant changes to google and the future of the internet. but it’s equally likely the trial will result in no changes and google will be free to continue operating however it wants. we’ll keep updating this article with the latest developments from this landmark trial. as the trial is set to cover many google search related issues, we have organized the updates by topic to make the timeline easier to follow. dig deeper: why we care about search marketing email: see terms. verdict. u.s. district judge amit mehta isn’t expected to issue a ruling until early next year. if he decides google broke the law, another trial will decide what steps should be taken to rein in the mountain view, california based company. why we care: if the u.s. government wins this case, it could mean google is no longer automatically installed as the default search engine on everyday products, which could threaten its position as the world’s search leader. this means rival companies like yahoo! could realistically stand a chance of taking google’s crown for the first time, which could bring significant changes to the search landscape as we know it. what’s at stake. the u.s. and state allies are not asking for money; they want a court order to stop google from its alleged unfair practices. this order could greatly affect google’s business. for example: this lawsuit is considered one of the most significant challenges to the tech industry’s dominance since the doj sued microsoft in 1998 for its control of the personal computer market. in that case, the trial court ruled that microsoft had unlawfully attempted to hinder the rival browser netscape navigator. microsoft ultimately reached a settlement that didn’t break up the company. if google’s lead attorney schmidtelein looks familiar, that may be because he represented microsoft against the doj in the 1998 trial. read the us justice department’s official statement for more information on why it is suing google. contributing authors are invited to create content for martech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. the opinions they express are their own. related stories new on martech about the author related topics fuel up with free marketing insights. see terms. discover time saving technologies and actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges. online mar. 25 26, 2025: martech spring online sept. 17 18, 2025: martech fall learn actionable search marketing tactics that can help you drive more traffic, leads, and revenue. start training now:: smx advanced november 14 15, 2022: smx next march 8 9, 2022: master classes free 14 day semrush trial get 55+ tools to gain insights and grow your audience. think spiderwebs, not funnels for remarkable seo results realize your creative vision in 2025 data driven strategies for retail success customer data platforms: a marketer’s guide marketing automation platforms: a marketer’s guide enterprise seo platforms: a marketer’s guide 2025 audience strategy guide meet your new ai powered marketing assistant! fuel up with free marketing insights. topics our events about follow us © 2025 martech.org is a trademark of semrush inc. third door media, inc. is a business to business media company. it is the publisher of martech and the producer of the martech conference. third door media offers marketing solutions that help vendors connect with an engaged audience of b2c and b2b marketers. the company headquarters is 800 boylston street, suite 2475, boston, ma usa 02199.

ben edelman google this post is part of revisiting litigation alleging google discovery violations. the state of texas, et. al., v. google   docket. 4:20 cv 00957 sdj (e.d. tex.) filed december 16, 2020. first filing as to discovery violations: april 26, 2024. case disposition: google motion for summary judgment pending. plaintiff states’ motion to compel written discovery regarding destruction of google chats (july 3, 2024). alleges “rampant destruction of relevant communications was no accident; it was google’s policy and design.” seeks discovery to reveal the extent of google’s destruction of relevant chats. plaintiff states’ motion for spoliation sanctions (january 6, 2025). as to intent: “google instructed its employees to use “history off” chats for work related communications because they would not be preserved for future litigation.” notes that in the 2008 walker memo, google both remarked on “significant legal and regulatory matters” and announced that it would set chat history to “off the record”   indicating that the former motivated the latter, which the motion claims is improper. remarks on google training to employees: “google taught employees that sending an ‘off the record’ chat is ‘[b]etter than sending [an] email’ because ‘off the record’ chats ‘are not retained by google as emails are.’” as to google’s approach to preservation: google put “the onus … on each individual employee under a litigation hold to determine in real time whether a particular part of a particular chat might be relevant to any actual or reasonably anticipated litigation,” and says google failed to provide suitable guidance to those employees. google did not instruct employees to turn history on for discussions related to a litigation hold until october 2021. google did not audit whether employees complied with litigation holds. as to untimeliness of google’s preservation: notes that google claimed privilege over documents relating to ad tech as early as 2006, and specifically anticipated litigation in this area by 2013. notes texas’s first civil investigative demand to google in september 2019. yet 61 of 202 custodians in this case were not placed on a litigation hold until 2022, more than 3 years after that cid was issued and more than 2 years after google told plaintiffs that it had implemented appropriate litigation holds. (table of delays in hold dates.) as to specific individuals who failed to preserve: reports that google ceo sundar pichai never switched on chat history, not a single time, to preserve even a single communication. reports that google failed to preserve 96% of pichai’s chats from a two month period for which partial data is available. as to the volume of chat messages at issue: claims the relevant google employee custodians sent and received about 20,000 chat messages per employee per year, totaling between 2.8 and 4 million chat messages per year across all employees at issue in this litigation. as to remedy: asks the court to “(1) instruct the jury that (i) google had an obligation to preserve chats, (ii) google intentionally deleted millions of chats, and (iii) the jury must presume the deleted chats contained information unfavorable to google, (2) find that chats likely would have provided further evidence against google’s motions for summary judgment; (3) award plaintiffs’ fees and costs associated with this motion.” 42 attachments to the motion including: january 31, 2025 supplemental expert report of jacob hoschstetler as to the scope of chat messages lost due to google’s failure to preserve (87% of messages lost, at least 18,566/21,269). hoschstetler also reports that not a single custodian in the log dataset produced by google personally switched the history to “on” for any of the conversations during the period of that log, although google said it instructed employees to do so if discussing a topic within the scope of their litigation hold. 94.5% of chat conversations had chat history turned off for at least some of the time period covered by the log dataset. for google ceo sundar pichai, more than 96% of chat messages were not preserved, and in a single conversation, more than 300 messages were not preserved. deep dives with extended quotes united states v. google (ad tech) texas et al. v. google (ad tech) united states v. google (search) epic games v. google / in re google play store antitrust litigation viacom v. google google has been in the news not just for multiple litigation losses on the merits of antitrust cases, but also for repeated failures to preserve and produce relevant documents. let me offer five themes from the discovery proceedings. first, kent walker’s 2008 memo warned employees against putting their frank ideas into documents that might be “used against” google in litigation. in the same memo, walker also announced a reduction in retention for certain chats, all but instructing employees to move sensitive discussions to off the record chats. the united states called the walker memo “an early hallmark of google’s intent to deprive litigants of evidence.” indeed, with walker counseling employees on what to retain, litigants must wonder whether surviving documents truly reflect genuine business discussions, versus a strategically incomplete record created in anticipation of litigation. examining google’s documents in the search case, judge mehta remarked: [t]he court is taken aback by the lengths to which google goes to avoid creating a paper trail for regulators and litigants. it is no wonder then that this case has lacked the kind of nakedly anticompetitive communications seen in microsoft and other section 2 cases. … google clearly took to heart the lessons from these cases. it trained its employees, rather effectively, not to create ‘bad’ evidence. second, google employees moved communications out of email and into “chat” where, as walker indicated, google did not preserve documents by default. in any 1:1 chat, even among employees whose business responsibilities made them subject to document preservation obligations, google’s internal chat tool defaulted to not saving materials thereby causing them to be deleted and not provided in litigation. so too for group chats where an employee set history to off. of course employees knew this and often discussed the need to move to an off the record environment exactly to avoid document retention. employees’ use of these methods wasn’t some rogue tactic, nor any surprise; quite the contrary, google’s training encouraged exactly this, calling chat “better than email” because it is “not retained by google as emails are.” even current google ceo sundar pichai participated in the ruse, remarking “also can we change the setting of this group to history off.” like others, pichai knew exactly what he was doing: in a special hearing in the search case as judge mehta investigated google’s discovery violations, pichai testified that he “was aware” that default chat settings and history off chats deleted messages after just 24 hours even if a litigation hold required their retention. third, google employees practiced “fake privilege” adding an attorney to an email thread not genuinely to seek legal advice, but to create a veneer of privilege. for years, google withheld such emails from its litigation adversaries, and only under pressure from litigants did google recently begin to reclassify documents. even when google ultimately de privileged some documents, this caused substantial delay to litigation and, as the department of justice remarked in the ads case, created “administrative chaos” including google retroactively “downgrading” the privilege of more than 40,000 documents. here too, the problem goes all the way up to google ceo sundar pichai, who admitted adding lawyers when he was “seeking confidentiality for the document” and not “really seeking legal advice.” fourth, google’s most senior executives showed a lack of candor in both their memories and their document preservation practices. this problem first arose in viacom v. google copyright litigation. for example, google co founder larry page was strikingly evasive when deposed in that case, stating 132 times “i don’t recall,” including on subjects that were widely discussed internal to google, at google’s board, and even in public. meanwhile, then ceo eric schmidt unapologetically reported that “it was my practice to delete or otherwise cause the e mails that i read to go away as quickly as possible,” despite participating in discussions on subjects where litigation was foreseeable, actually foreseen, or for that matter underway. viacom summarized the problem: this court can decide whether these key executives and witnesses behaved with the level of candor and respect for the legal process that this court has a right to expect from senior executives of important public companies. in comparison, sundar pichai’s recent approach is, in these respects, an improvement. yes, pichai improperly used chat to avoid creating an unfavorable record. and yes, he added lawyers to a thread to try to increase confidentiality (not actually seeking legal advice). but when called to testify under oath, at least pichai told the truth about what he did and why. at least sometimes. in epic games, plaintiffs presented evidence of pichai not just asking for history to be turned off, but trying to delete history himself an action which pichai said he “d[id]n’t recall.” ultimately there’s no escaping the role of senior executives in these discovery violations. above i remarked on discovery disputes implicating ceo pichai, co founder page, and former ceo schmidt. also at issue: susan wojcicki, then ceo of youtube, who proposed that robert kyncl (then chief business officer of youtube) “send via hangouts” because that is “off the record,” or if not, she “can change to off the record.” and kent walker, whose guidance and policy change set this mess in motion, was and remains google’s general counsel. i do not even attempt to list the countless senior vice presidents and vice presidents who appear in the discovery violation proceedings. of google’s many participating executives, only walker currently faces even the possibility of a personal sanction a request from american economic liberties project and others that the california state bar investigate and penalize according to its rules. fifth, google’s discovery violations have been unfolding in slow motion for years, with no real penalty to date. below, i trace google’s discovery tactics back to viacom v. google where discovery questions were only partially briefed, and never decided, but nonetheless show the beginnings of this problem more than a decade ago. this year, the doj’s two antitrust cases against google revealed many new details about google’s discovery tactics. yet google play store antitrust litigation in 2022 uncovered the basic problem google training employees to use chat rather than email, and not retaining those chats. two years later, courts are still grappling with the problem and exploring what, if anything, to do about it. *** many excellent articles summarize courts’ decisions about google document preservation. but these articles largely focus on what judges wrote, without the color that comes from detailed briefing by plaintiffs, not to mention extended quotes from the underlying documents. in the pages linked below, i organize (what i hope to be) most relevant exhibits, briefing, and decisions in the cases at issue. realistically, i don’t have it all but with the deep links i offer (to detailed filings with detailed quotes) and with the free online tools i invoke (where full dockets are organized and, mostly, full text searchable), diligent readers are positioned to find even more. send suggestions for addition. for those who have followed google spoliation proceedings, the newest three cases are familiar though i’ve found documents and quotes not elsewhere called out. meanwhile, the 2010 viacom v. google proceedings are also worth a read because, more than a decade earlier, that case raised much the same questions whether google honored its discovery obligations, and if not, what to do about it. united states v. google (ad tech) united states v. google (search) epic games v. google / in re google play store antitrust litigation viacom v. google this post is part of revisiting litigation alleging google discovery violations. united states of america v. google llc   docket. 1:23 cv 00108 lmb jfa (e.d. va.). filed january 24, 2023. first filing as to discovery violations: august 2, 2024. case allegation: google used unlawful methods to dominate the ad tech stack, including buying control of key tools, locking out rivals, buying and killing a burgeoning competitor, and “drying out” other competition. complaint. case disposition: bench trial complete. awaiting decision. united states’ memorandum of law iso plaintiffs’ motion for an adverse inference and referenced documents. on document preservation generally: “aware of the risk of ‘several significant legal and regulatory matters’, google … trained its employees to channel discussion of ‘hot topics’ that ‘may be used against [google]’ … to google’s internal instant message chat tools [where] absent manual intervention by business employees on a chat by chat basis, all internal chat communications would be automatically destroyed after 24 hours. google adopted this auto delete policy knowing that its employees’ communications could someday be scrutinized by a court such as this one.” on purpose and intent of preservation failures: “google’s spoliation is the predictable and intended result of the intersection of google’s broader policies and culture with its specific litigation choices here. google’s stated goal … was to avoid having its ‘sensitive’ communications ‘discovered by an adversary and used against … google.’” “[n]ot only did google choose to continue its policy of auto deletion of chats after 24 hours, google also chose to delay placing many of its employees on a litigation on hold in this case until months (or even years) after google was required to preserve their documents.” “employees … chose to make chats ‘history off’ … for the express purpose of evading discovery.” “despite google’s anticipation of litigation on [specified] subjects …, and google’s agreement to produce relevant documents… google continued its policy of automatically deleting chats.” “google’s document production contains numerous examples of employees seeking to make chats ‘history off’ to ensure they were not discoverable.” on effects of preservation failures: “plaintiffs were deprived of valuable, likely irreplaceable, discovery. … the total volume of chats produced by google in this case is remarkably low in proportion to the volume of other communications (e.g. emails) produced from the same employees.” “chats are an important window into the candid thought processes, intentions, and observations of [employees … by design, one of the only places in which employees were free to write down candid observations or opinions relating to the core issues in this case.” “google’s conduct … is deeply troubling. google has stretched and weaponized the attorney client privilege and its protections; it has intentionally spoliated evidence; and despite branding itself as a world class technology innovator, it has engaged in a series of repeated errors and delays in the production of discovery, all of which have served google’s broader, strategic ends of impeding its adversaries’ access to information to which they are entitled.” on “communicate with care” training: remarked that this training “advised google employees that discussing sensitive topics via ‘off the record’ chats was ‘[b]etter than sending [an] email’ because such charts ‘are not retained by google as emails are’.” “second, ‘communicate with care’ cultivated a corporate culture of hiding documents from discovery by training google employees to leverage pretextual claims of privilege, including detailed instructions on how to craft an email that will appear to be subject to the attorney client privilege.” on remedy: “the court should presume the spoliated chats were unfavorable to google.” “the court may limit the testimony of witnesses who participated in the spoliation conduct at issue by precluding them from offering testimony supportive of google on issues such as intent, procompetitive justifications, and the effect of google’s challenged conduct on competition.” “the court may preclude google from arguing that a paucity of direct, contemporaneous evidence supports an inference that no additional evidence exists.” “the court may sanction google by admonishing, censuring, or otherwise publicly reprimanding it.” “when, as here, a litigant violates those obligations in ways that compromise or undercut the truth seeking function of the judicial process, they must be held accountable. if not, google and other companies aware of this litigation will continue to encourage employees to adopt careless or evasive discovery related practices, particularly when faced with similar high stakes litigation.” kent walker memo (september 16, 2008). “please do think twice before you write about hot topics.” “to help avoid inadvertent retention of instant messages, we have decided to make ‘off the record’ the google corporate default setting for google talk.” employee training as to “communicate with care.” discusses what an employee might do when seeking to communicate on a sensitive subject. to a suggestion to send an email, remarks “don’t send the email. chat ‘off the record’ via hangouts instead.” the training instructs that off the record chat is “better than sending the email” because such chats are “not retained by google as emails are.” see also antitrust basics for search team (march 2011). appendix c: examples of google employees spoliating chats. nine single spaced pages listing spoliation by google ceo sundar pichai (“can we change the setting of this group to history off”) as well as numerous employees: vip andleigh: “lets keep confi, we can also turn off history. if i see something important, i’ll note it down somewhere” amin charaniya: “btw didnt realize history is on for us” “mind if i turn it off?” “sure” [end of chat] amin charaniya with dardelean@ and touma@: “this group is on record . . . we should kill it and create one that is single threaded and off the record” “who is in charge with creating this room? i really feel super uncomfortable us continuing this on the record” “im gonna create a new room and kill this one” “i copied everyone into a new room . . . let’s stop using this one” [end of chat] anthony chavez: “separate topic   this chat room has history / is persisted? . . . can we configure it to be transient” “okay, let me create a new one right now. it’ll still be a space.” [end of chat] nash islam: “too sensitive for email so keep on ping?” adam juda: “i see that history is on in this chat. if that can’t be changed, can i please be removed from this discussion?” adam juda: “my preference is history off” adam juda: “how do we turn history off? i don’t do history on” [end of chat] roshan khan: “can you turn history off . . . otherwise let’s chat in vcs” [end of chat] woojim kim: “can you turn off history?” chris lasala: “maybe start an off the record ping thread” chris lasala: “start a ping with history turned off” wendy logan: “we can pivot to group chat with history off   or   keep the current setup and only reserve this space for non sensitive discussions” uchechi okereke: “please can we turn history off?” aparna pappu: “please keep history off on this legally sensitive chat room” martin pal with tris@ :”we want chat history on? i would generally prefer for us to keep history off.” … “let’s turn it off then” [end of chat] prabhakar raghavan: “ugh pl stop this chat, for some reason history is on” prabhakar raghavan: “i’m going to kill this room and re create as a group chat with history off.” danielle romain: “i’m not supportive of turning history on. the discussion that started this thread gets into legal and potentially competitive territory, which i’d like to be conscientious of having under privilege. so that you’re aware, when history is on, it’s discoverable. sometimes that’s totally fine but i’d like to stick to the default of history off.” vidhya srinivasan: “we should turn history off” vidhya srinivasan: “pls turn off history” bonita stewart and jason washing: “btw you might want to turn your chat history off” “geez . . . for sure! . . . thank you!” [end of chat] bonita stewart and cyrus beagley: “on your chats you have the history turned on. we are advised to turn history off so messages are cleared after 24 hours” “oh i didn’t know that … i’ll turn it off then…” appendix d: plaintiffs’ timeline of google’s spoliation. appendix e: plaintiffs’ chart showing a sharp increase of chats produced after google suspended auto delete. plaintiffs remark on “at least two trial witnesses whose volume of substantive chats dramatically increased (eight times over) when google suspended auto deletion (nirmal jayaram and george levitte).” google’s memorandum of law in opposition to plaintiffs’ motion for an adverse inference. “plaintiffs’ motion is barred because it is untimely.” “plaintiffs have not demonstrated, by clear and convincing evidence, that google acted with the specific intent to deprive them of evidence.” “plaintiffs have not demonstrated prejudice, a prerequisite to any form of sanction under rule 37(e)(1).” “plaintiffs have not demonstrated that any esi much less esi relevant to their claims was lost.” “plaintiffs’ request for sanctions pursuant to the court’s inherent authority should be denied because rule 37 controls.” reply memorandum of law in further support of plaintiffs’ motion for an adverse inference. “google does not dispute that it failed to meet that obligation and destroyed relevant chats. google does not deny that witnesses, including senior executives, used chats to discuss their work, including work relevant to this case. nor does google deny that it: (i) made ‘history off’ the default setting for chats, such that they would be deleted automatically after 24 hours; (ii) required individual employees to make cumbersome, in the moment decisions about a chat’s relevance to a litigation hold in order to preserve them; and, most concerning, (iii) trained employees to discuss ‘sensitive’ matters in ‘history off’ chats so they would not be ‘discovered by an adversary,’ all of which facilitated and encouraged destruction of work related chats. google does not dispute that this conduct went on for years, stopping only after this case was filed.” “when google was faced with increasing exposure from litigation by government enforcement agencies, it took a calculated risk to create a system that would deprive its litigation adversaries of evidence. the court need not guess or make an inference about that goal; the walker memo expressly stated it. over time, google (including witnesses here) consistently underscored and reinforced the messages from the walker memo with mandatory corporate trainings about avoiding ‘discoverable’ communications. consistent with that corporate training, google employees, including witnesses here, deliberately turned to ‘off the record’ chats to discuss sensitive material they did not want preserved and turned over in litigation.” identifies six distinct facts google failed to disclose to the united states about its document destruction practices: 1. “history off” chats (an undefined term) were automatically deleted after 24 hours; 2. “history off” was the default chat setting, absent manual intervention; 3. google employees were asked to manually override this default on a chat by chat basis; 4. google conducted no oversight of whether employees were manually preserving chats; 5. google trained its employees to use “history off” chats as preferable to email to discuss “sensitive” topics, so that such discussions would not be discoverable; and 6. google’s in house lawyers instructed employees to keep their chats “history off” so that they would be automatically deleted flags specific instances of google employees failing to preserve relevant documents: document custodian “ms. [chetna] bindra, whom plaintiffs now know was on litigation hold in december 2019, proposed the next month that a group discussing google’s ad targeting policies, including trial witness nitish korula, ‘do a ping thread with history off and without nitish’ because mr. korula was on litigation hold.”   source document custodian “bindra in feb. 2020: ‘the thread has history on. using the other one.’”   source document custodian jason washing “turning ‘history off’ while on litigation hold”   source “relevant history off chats from [haskell] garon in 2020, copied into email by another custodian but not found in garon’s files”   source “trial witness and then head of ads business [jerry] dischler successfully proposing ‘a group chat that disappears after 24h’ for business discussion in 2020”   source trial witness “[aparna] pappu’s efforts in 2020 to turn history off”   sources 1, 2, 3, 4 trial witness “pappu in 2020 participating in a chat that abruptly ends when colleague states, ‘i could see this being done in a way that leads to law suits . . . omfg . . . history is on, jesus . . . sigh [end of chat]’”   source trial witness “pappu in oct. 2019: ‘so weird i realized this one random topic is history on!’ [end of chat]”   source (thereby indicating that many other topics have history off) trial witness “lasala in dec. 2020: ‘jeff turned history on! . . . i should be careful now’)”   source trial witness “lasala proposing ‘history off’ chats for sensitive business discussions with trial witness duke dukellis months after new lit hold dates.”   source adam lasnik explaining why he avoids “discoverable medium[s]” for “especially sensitive” topics, including “competitive landscape (monopoly, crushing competition, etc.)” and instead uses “off the record chats” to avoid messages “ending up in court”   source then ceo of youtube susan wojcicki proposed that then chief business officer of youtube robert kyncl “send via hangouts” because that is “off the record” or if not she “can change to off the record”   source plaintiffs’ post trial proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law at heading “the court should sanction google for its spoliation of chats.” “google’s conduct has thwarted the court’s truth seeking function not only in this case but in several other cases” (citing google search [update caption]). flags “google’s repeated and persistent efforts to ensure its employees’ chats were deleted despite its known discovery obligations.” on that basis, argues that “the court should … go beyond mere condemnation to ensure google’s ‘contempt’ for its ‘discovery obligations’ receives the appropriate sanctions.” “because google acted ‘with the intent to deprive’ plaintiffs of the use of chats in this litigation, the court may ‘presume that the lost information was unfavorable’ to google. specifically, the court may reasonably infer that intentionally deleted chats about ‘sensitive’ topics relevant to the claims in this case would have been unfavorable to google on the core issues that were disputed at trial, including market definition, monopoly power, google’s intent, the anticompetitive nature of google’s conduct, and the harm google’s conduct caused its competitors and customers.” august 27, 2024 hearing. transcript not publicly available, but quoted in part in plaintiffs’ post trial proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law at heading “the court should sanction google for its spoliation of chats.” court called google’s conduct “very serious” “clear abuse of the [attorney client] privilege” and “absolutely inappropriate and improper.” “had google set the default settings for chats to history on, ‘the government could see … in this particular case somebody deleted [a chat], then you could focus on why was that deleted.’” “because google kept its default settings for chats to history off, ‘you’ve lost that ability in this case because everything is deleted unless it’s saved’.” “[t] his record creates a very serious problem for google in terms of how much credibility the court will be able to apply. intent is a serious issue in this case, and i think it’s going to be a problem given this history.” this post is part of revisiting litigation alleging google discovery violations. united states of america v. google llc   docket. 1:20 cv 03010 apm. (d.d.c.) filed october 20, 2020. first filing as to discovery violations: february 23, 2023. case allegation: google unlawfully maintained monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices. complaint. case disposition: opinion of august 5, 2024 finds google has monopoly power in the general search text ads market, google’s exclusive agreements foreclose a substantial share of the text ads market and allow google to charge supra competitive prices and degrade quality. memorandum iso united states’ motion for sanctions against google and an evidentiary hearing to determine the appropriate relief. “by intentionally destroying employee chats and making repeated misleading disclosures to the united states, google violated rule 37(e) and is subject to sanctions for spoliation.” “for years, google empowered, and even encouraged, its employees to engage in ‘history off’ written communications known by google employees as ‘off the record’ chats which were then automatically destroyed after 24 hours. google even trained employees that ‘off the record’ chats, also known as google hangouts or instant messages, are ‘[b]etter than sending [an] email’ and ‘not retained by google as emails are.’” “google routinely destroyed these written communications. in fact, google continued automatically deleting these ‘off the record’ chats after it reasonably anticipated litigation, throughout the united states’ investigation, and even when the company became a defendant in this litigation every 24 hours up until february 8, 2023.” “google repeatedly misrepresented its document preservation policies, which conveyed the false impression that the company was preserving all custodial chats.” “google’s refusal to suspend its auto deletion policy earlier is especially notable in light of the sanctions motion filed in the epic proceedings. even after the plaintiffs in that case confronted google with spoliation concerns, google still withheld its 24 hour auto deletion policy from the united states and continued to destroy written communications in this case.” “google knows that its employees use the ‘off the record’ functionality to avoid discovery.” quoting an internal google analysis: “when… history is off, … there’s a higher likelihood that sensitive information is being discussed” and “[p]eople don’t want chat to be discoverable.” quotes google policies and remarks purporting to preserve and produce all relevant documents. quotes a google records retention policy which google provided as part of an esi questionnaire from the department of justice: “with respect to legal holds, the policy states that “[a] legal hold suspends all deletion procedures in order to preserve appropriate records under special circumstances, such as litigation or governmental investigations.” (emphasis added by plaintiffs in the filing) “neither [that] policy, nor google’s esi questionnaire responses, (1) discusses the existence of ‘off the record’ written communications; (2) explains how ‘off the record’ or history off chats are treated; or (3) refers to a default, 24 hour deletion of any esi.” quotes google’s claim that it was preserving all documents: “google has put a legal hold in place. the legal hold suspends auto deletion.” explains that google only admitted “off the record” chat deletion after the united states requested further materials incidental to the epic sanctions motion. on the importance of the deleted documents: “these deleted chats may have contained especially probative information and revealed candid discussions between key google executives on relevant topics. as a result, the prejudice to the united states is substantial.” “[c]hats are often a rich source of evidence: employees tend to be more candid in informal modes of communication than they are over email or in presentations and memos.” “chats are an even more significant source of evidence under the circumstances here, because google has instructed employees to avoid discussing sensitive issues over email, including issues related to competition.” on intentionality: “google and its employees intentionally exploited its ‘off the record’ chat policy.” “[t]he company’s employees knew that history off chats were not being preserved and exploited that fact to shield sensitive information from discovery.” “when google warned employees against discussing sensitive matters over email, the company encouraged them to do so instead through off the record chats.” “google’s exploitation of off the record chats belies any notion that this destruction was an honest mistake or an oversight.” calls out specific employees who used “history off” chat and employee discussions evading document retention obligations: ceo sundar pichai: “can we change the setting of this group to history off” meg campbell: “it needs to be history off.” anna kartasheva and jim kolotouros: “[w]e should chat live so you can get the history; best to not put in email.” purnima kochikar: “the conversations in rooms on meet remain in perpetuity so please don’t discuss either topics in rooms.” margaret lam: “i’d prefer to have history off. … i talk about rsa related things all day and i don’t have history on for all my chats 🙂 … ok maybe i take you off this convo” margaret lam: “can i ask you to turn off history :)” christopher li: “is there no way to turn history off for these spaces?” “i don’t even see the option as an administrator.” “i’ll deprecate this group so we can use the other.” prabhakar raghavan: “used “a ‘history off’ chat” in discussions about ‘how chrome has affected our query volume.”” sameer samat: “pls keep in mind this chat history is not off” david sun: “if anyone wants to hear horror stories of chat histories being used in depositions at google … just ask me and i can speak generally. … it’s bad news.” larry yang: “reminder: do not speculate on legal matters over email or (saved) chat” “since it’s a sensitive topic, i prefer to discuss offline or over hangout.” “let’s not talk about markets and market share via email.” “when you want to talk about stuff that has legal ramifications, such as privacy, the way to discuss it is in person, and not in email / writing of any form (unless you consult with the lawyer cats/pm first :)” “we should chat live so you can get the history; best to not put in email.” “maybe we should discuss this ‘off the record’, i think [there’s] a lot to unpack here.” schramm: “should we have history off for this?” “i think our chats about google products are more likely to come up in court” cdimon: “since history is turned on, be mindful of putting anything discoverable here.” bill richardson: “we have history off so that we can speak (more) freely.” william furr: “it’s easy to get carried away in chat and communicate with less care than you might with email.” (citations provided where findable. many cited documents are under seal, so available only to the extent quoted in the memorandum.) memorandum in support of plaintiffs states’ motion for sanctions against google and an evidentiary hearing to determine appropriate relief. “google did not disclose its chat destruction policy until january 2023.” “google’s chat destruction policy was not reasonable.” “deleting its preservation obligations to employees was unreasonable.” “auto deletion was unreasonable.” “it was inherently unreasonable for google to default most chats to ‘history off’ and then automatically delete those chats for custodians under a litigation hold. that is especially true because google recognized its employees’ use of ‘history off’ chats ‘to discuss sensitive topics’ and avoid discovery.“ “the united states was presumptively prejudiced because google acted with an intent to deprive.” “[e]mployees discussed sensitive topics via chat because they knew other communication methods were subject to production. “ quotes additional employees about hiding conversations from legal scrutiny: “i prefer not to be deposed for the contents of kappa chat… it needs to be history off”, “should we have history off for this?”, “since history is turned on, be mindful of putting anything discoverable here…” google’s memorandum in opposition to plaintiffs’ motions for sanctions. “plaintiffs’ unreasonable delay in raising any objections bars their motions.” “google took reasonable steps to preserve relevant documents.” “plaintiffs were not prejudiced.” “google did not act with an ‘intent to deprive.’” “no additional discovery is required or appropriate.” united states’ reply in support of its motion for sanctions against google. “motion for sanctions is timely.” “google did not disclose its chat destruction policy until january 2023.” “google’s instruction to its employees to turn ‘history on’ is not reasonable” because “delegating its preservation obligations to employees was unreasonable” and “auto deletion was unreasonable.” “the united states was prejudiced.” plaintiff states’ reply in support of their motion for sanctions against google, llc and an evidentiary hearing to determine appropriate relief. order on plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions. “on the present record, the court cannot make a finding that google acted ‘with the intent to deprive’ plaintiffs of the ‘use’ of certain chats ‘in the litigation.’ nor can it determine whether google ‘failed to take reasonable steps to preserve’ such information.” ordered google to produce for in camera review all litigation hold and reminder memoranda. ordered google to produce declarations from 20 custodians to be selected by the united states as to their practices in preserving chats, and what communications they held with chat history turned off. plaintiff’s proposed conclusions of law at heading “google’s systematic destruction of unfavorable evidence warrants sanctions under rule 37(e).” “a party fails to take reasonable steps to preserve esi when it (1) adopts a document destruction system that erases chats from production in litigations and investigations and then (2) continues to automatically delete the electronic communications of employees involved with the subject matter of a lawsuit and gives its employees ‘carte blanche to make his or her own call about what might be relevant in [a] complex antitrust case and whether a chat communication should be preserved.’” (citing google play store antitrust litigation) plaintiff’s proposed findings of fact at heading “google adopted policies for destroying or hiding documents to avoid producing them to regulators and litigants.” as to preservation: “google employees interchangeably refer to ‘history off’ chats as ‘off the record’ chats. google permanently deletes all ‘off the record’ communications after 24 hours if both users in a one on one chat have their retention history set to ‘off,’ or if history is set to ‘off’ in a group chat.” “in september 2008, google changed the default retention setting for many chats to ‘history off’.” google’s kent walker said this would “help avoid inadvertent retention of instant messages.” “google employees at all levels of responsibility from the ceo to vice presidents to product managers use ‘off the record’ chats for business purposes.” lists specific purposes for which svp prabhakar raghavan, svp jonathan rosenberg, and vp kolotouros used “history off” chats. “google employees intentionally took chats to ‘history off’ to avoid preserving them.” as to defaults: “google has the technical capability to override default retention rules and set legal holds for all employees’ chats.” “seven days [after] the united states informed google that it intended to move for spoliation sanctions … google changed its chat default settings and began to default chats to ‘history on’ for individuals on legal hold.” as to improper claims of privilege: “google trains its employees to shield emails and other documents from review and production in investigations and litigation.” “google has long trained its employees to include attorneys on ‘any written communication regarding revshare and mada.’” “google employees follow their training and include attorneys on ‘any written communication regarding revshare and mada,’ even when not requesting legal advice.” “google’s attempts to shield discovery include the company’s ceo. mr. pichai testified that he sometimes copied chief legal officer kent walker on emails and asked for legal advice when he was not ‘really seeking legal advice, but … seeking confidentiality for the document’” and quoting his remarks: “there have been occasions where i’ve just marked [emails] privileged to indicate it’s confidential.” “after multiple rounds of re review of ‘silent attorney’ emails, google abandoned privilege on 12% (26 of 210 documents) of the random sample the court requested for review in chambers, when it was clear it would be held accountable.” as to employee use of terminology: “google has cautioned its employees since at least 2003 to be careful about what they put in writing because it might be discoverable, and employees heed that caution.” (referring to antitrust basics for search team.) august 5, 2024 opinion discusses the allegations of google discovery violations: as to “google’s long time practice (since 2008) of deleting chat messages among google employees after 24 hours”: “this failure to retain chats continued even after google received the document hold notice at the start of the investigative phase of this case.” as to google’s “flagrant misuse of the attorney client privilege”: google “trained its employees to add its in house lawyers on ‘any written communication regarding rev share [rsa] and mada’” which, the court says, led google to initially withhold tens of thousands of records on the grounds of privilege, only to later deem them not privileged. says the court need not make a finding of intent in google’s failure to preserve these documents or its incorrectly marking them as privileged, because intent is not an element of the underlying antitrust claims. “still, the court is taken aback by the lengths to which google goes to avoid creating a paper trail for regulators and litigants. it is no wonder then that this case has lacked the kind of nakedly anticompetitive communications seen in microsoft and other section 2 cases.” after quoting other companies’ improper statements indicating antitrust violations, the court continues: “google clearly took to heart the lessons from these cases. it trained its employees, rather effectively, not to create ‘bad’ evidence.” as to remedy: “on the request for sanctions, the court declines to impose them. not because google’s failure to preserve chat messages might not warrant them. but because the sanctions plaintiffs request do not move the needle on the court’s assessment of google’s liability.” “the court’s decision not to sanction google should not be understood as condoning google’s failure to preserve chat evidence. any company that puts the onus on its employees to identify and preserve relevant evidence does so at its own peril. google avoided sanctions in this case. it may not be so lucky in the next one.” this post is part of revisiting litigation alleging google discovery violations. epic games, inc. v. google llc / in re google play store antitrust litigation   docket. 3:20 cv 05671 jd (n.d. cal.). /and/ in re google play store antitrust litigation   docket. 3:21 md 02981 jd. filed august 13, 2020. first proceedings as to discovery violations: october 13, 2022. case allegation: google acquired a monopoly in android in app payments, and google unlawfully maintains a monopoly in android mobile app distribution and payments. complaint. case disposition: jury ruled in epic’s favor. remedy on appeal to ninth circuit. plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions. on the scope of deleted documents: “google has destroyed irretrievably an unknown but undoubtedly significant number of communications by its employees about relevant business conversations, including on topics at the core of this litigation. google permanently deletes google chats1 every 24 hours and did so even after this litigation commenced, after plaintiffs repeatedly inquired about why those chats were missing from google’s productions, and after plaintiffs submitted a proffer on this exact issue at the court’s direction.” on autodeletion: “disabling an autodeletion function is universally understood to be one of the most basic and simple functions a party must do to preserve [electronically stored information]” (quoting and citing dr distribs). “it is difficult to imagine a litigant better situated to prevent automatic deletion on its own platforms than google. when google, whose stated mission is to ‘organize the world’s information and make it accessible,’ irretrievably destroys information despite multiple warnings, its conduct is intentional.” google’s opposition to motion for sanctions. “google took reasonable steps to preserve relevant esi. … rule 37(e) ‘does not call for perfection’.” “plaintiffs do not show they suffered any prejudice. … plaintiffs fail to explain why any unique evidence regarding their claims would be found in chats rather than in the massive corpus of contracts, emails, presentations, strategy documents, and transactional data produced by google.” partial transcript of january 12, 2023 hearing including hearing exhibits. additional transcript section. judge donato on google’s failing to preserve chats: “i think there’s little doubt on the evidence that we’ve heard so far that chat, google’s chat function could, in fact, have contained evidence relevant … to this case. … google did not systematically preserve those chats but, instead, left the preservation of chats to the discretion of each individual who received a hold notice. … google never monitored the chats to see if relevant evidence was possibly being lost. … i’m concerned about all this for a variety of reasons [including] at our very first case management conference in october of 2020, docket number 45, google represented to me that it had taken all appropriate steps to preserve all evidence relevant to the issues reasonably evident in this action. i’m finding that representation to the court to be hard to square with what appears to have been failure to preserve the chats. … [i]f google didn’t intend to preserve the chats, they should have told me about that in october of 2020.” on remedy: “i’m not going to let google get away with this is. there is going to be a substantial trial related penalty” plaintiffs’ reply iso motion for sanctions. on deletions generally: “google’s argument that its efforts were reasonable is irreconcilable with the systematic and avoidable destruction of relevant chats as well as its continued failure to explain why it did not suspend automatic deletion, including after being expressly put on notice.” on prejudice: “google’s contention that plaintiffs have not suffered prejudice is refuted by evidence showing that chats are just as substantive as (and often more candid than) email.” on intent: “google’s argument that it lacked the requisite intent ignores the facts that google still, to this day, continues the wholesale destruction of chats, that google withheld information about the company’s destruction of chats for months, and that google’s custodians intentionally divert sensitive conversations to chat to avoid discovery.” “google employees intentionally divert sensitive conversations to ‘history off’ chats, and chide others for honesty in ‘history on’ chats.” “if google truly believed that the wholesale destruction of all communications on one of the two communications platforms its employees routinely use was reasonable, it could have raised this position with plaintiffs. it did not.” “google’s conduct has the purpose of providing its employees a place to communicate free from discovery in litigation.” partial transcript of january 31, 2023 hearing. judge donato: “it’s plain as day to any objectively reasonable lawyer, any objectively reasonable lawyer, that chat is going to contain possibly relevant evidence.” plaintiffs’ supplemental brief on google’s chat production. “google employees, including those in leadership roles, routinely opted to move from history on rooms to history off chats to hold sensitive conversations, even though they knew they were subject to legal holds … even when discussing topics they knew were covered by the litigation holds in order to avoid leaving a record that could be produced in litigation..” provides specific examples of substantive discussions in chat. as to the reason why google employees use chat, quoting from a preserved message: “historically (ha) [google employees] have history off so that [they] can speak (more) freely.” “[h]istory is a liability.” “dont editorialize/comment in this group chat because it is long lived.” when employees realized history was on, they joked about turning it off: “heeeey . . . also just realized our history is [on] . . . can we turn it off? haha.” as to discovery violations by google ceo sundar pichai: “in one chat, mr. pichai began discussing a substantive topic, and then immediately wrote: “also can we change the setting of this group to history off. then, nine seconds later, mr. pichai apparently attempted (unsuccessfully) to delete this incriminating message. when asked under oath about the attempted deletion of the message, mr. pichai had no explanation, testifying ‘i definitely don’t know’ and ‘i don’t recall.'” (citing pichai deposition transcript) quotes from specific employees evading document retention obligations: bill richardson: “historically (ha) we have history off so that we can speak (more) freely.” margaret lam and ethan young: “i talk about rsa related things all day and i don’t have history on for all my chats :)” “we cannot delete it. i am also on multiple legal hold” “ok maybe i take you off this convo” margaret lam and tim mcdowell: “can i ask you to turn off history :)” “sure, i understand just feeling forgetful” margaret lam: “do you mind turning history off” margaret lam: “would it be too much to ask you to turn history off?” “lots of sensitivity with legal these days :)” margaret lam and shadia walsh: “also just realized our history is [on]. can we turn it off? haha” “yes let’s turn it off” ambarish kenghe: “folks, *please do consider if we nee to start a history off chat for this?* threaded chats you can’t turn off history” talia fernandes and romin malkan: “since this is a sensitive discussion, i’m going to move it to a smaller room” “group chat.. with the history off ;)” lyra schramm: “should we have history off for this?” meg campbell: “it needs to be history off” santiago scully: “if super sensitive you need to use a gvc because they could look at your recent ping history and that could go into court” divya chandra to otto jan: “i am on legal hold.” “prefer to keep chat history off.” “i’ll turn off” [chat ends] edvill@, sherle@, and tris warkentin: “quick aside   do we want history on?” “no” “history is on. i suggest everyone leave the room and create a new one with history off. i am happy to punt everyone out” cdimon@: “please do not share sensitive information here where possible. rather, you can flag documents, email threads, etc. for attention. until we fix the room architecture, content here is searchable/discoverable within the corp.” marcel folaron: “we can’t turn history on due to potential sensitive information being shared” nentl@ and thao nguyen: “i’d imagine history is intentionally off” “yes, history is intentionally turned off for all our war rooms.” brandon barbello and arpit midha: “history is a liability” “the more we chat the more threads we need and the more history on gets dangerous” stephan somogyi: ” if we create a new room from scratch we can disable history. we should find a way to do that rather than continuing in perma history mode” tian lim: “not sure why history is on for our chat, but can you turn it off” tian lim: “hey history is on in this chat, needs to be off” court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law re chat preservation. “google trains employees to ‘communicate with care’.” (training materials.) “[i]nternal communications actively expressed concerns about the possibility of disclosure in litigation and the risks of preserving chats” (quoting seven specific employee discussions on this subject, e.g. “should we have history off for this?”). employees specifically sought to evade retention obligations: “please do not share sensitive information here where possible . . . until we fix the room architecture, content here is searchable/discoverable.” on efficacy of google’s approach to production and alternatives: “google has the technical ability to set chat history to ‘on’ as the default for all employees who are subject to a legal hold, but it chooses not to.” “google did not check to see if custodians were actually preserving relevant chats as directed by the hold notice, and did nothing in the way of auditing or monitoring chat preservation.” “overall, the record demonstrates that google employees who received a litigation hold in this case were unable or unwilling to follow the chat preservation instructions, and sometimes disregarded the instructions altogether.” quotes a two page chat between google employees, which one recognizes as requiring preservation, to which the other says he will “take you off” the discussion rather than proceed with preservation. in another quoted chat, one employee said he was “on legal hold” but nonetheless “prefer[red] to keep chat history off”. on scope and intent: says google “fell strikingly short” as to preservation, calls google’s tactic “troubling” and a “worrisome” “substantial problem”, and says google “did not reveal [its practices] with candor or directness to the court or … plaintiffs.” criticizes google’s efforts to “downplay the problem” including its “dismissive attitude ill tuned to the gravity of its conduct.” criticizes google’s false claim that it was unable to change default chat history settings for individual employees, which the court says was “not truthful”. concludes that “google did not take reasonable steps to preserve electronically stored information that should have been preserved.” as to “intentionality,” concludes “that google intended to subvert the discovery process, and that chat evidence was “lost with the intent to prevent its use in litigation” and “with the intent to deprive another party of the information’s use in the litigation.” rejects google’s arguments about impact of the failure to preserve. on remedy: “the determination of an appropriate non monetary sanction requires further proceedings. the court fully appreciates plaintiffs’ dilemma of trying to prove the contents of what google has deleted. even so, the principle of proportionality demands that the remedy fit the wrong, and the court would like to see the state of play of the evidence at the end of fact discovery. at that time, plaintiffs will be better positioned to tell the court what might have been lost in the chat communications.” on monetary sanctions: “[i]t is entirely appropriate for google to cover plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in bringing the rule 37 motion, including the joint statement that preceded the motion and the evidentiary hearing and related events.” plaintiffs’ proposed remedy for destruction of evidence. on retention: “the record contains example after example of google employees beginning to discuss topics highly relevant to this litigation and then quickly agreeing to turn history off to trigger automatic deletion and shield further discussion from discovery. … these interrupted chats are the tip of the iceberg and are powerful evidence of key information which by any reasonable inference is information that google thought would be harmful to its legal position if disclosed being deliberately and permanently destroyed, and thus hidden from plaintiffs and the court.” says the destroyed information was “the most candid and unsanitized discussions regarding google’s anticompetitive conduct.” quotes additional specific examples of employees turning off chat to avoid document preservation, including google ceo sundar pichai. on privilege calls out “fake privilege” in which google “encouraged” employees “to copy… counsel to apply attorney client privilege” although not genuinely seeking legal advice. on remedy: seeks a permissive adverse inference, directing the jury that it “may” infer that google destroyed evidence which would have been harmful to google and helpful to plaintiffs. google’s opposition to plaintiffs’ proposed remedy. criticizes plaintiffs’ proposal as “severe.” “plaintiffs’ submission does not show that google’s post august 13, 2020 chat preservation practices deprived them of evidence that would have strengthened their case.” “plaintiffs offer nothing more than rank speculation that any missing chats would have been relevant let alone helpful to their case.” “the vast majority of the conduct discussed in plaintiffs’ motion took place before this lawsuit was filed in many cases years before this lawsuit was filed and therefore any chats on these topics would have been permissibly deleted pursuant to google’s document retention policy long before google’s preservation obligations arose.” “plaintiffs say that [certain] chats would have revealed google’s subjective motivation for the challenged conduct, but the inquiry in this antitrust case focuses on effect, not intent.” plaintiffs’ reply iso proposed remedy. “the time has come for google to bear the consequences of its longstanding, deliberate policy of instructing its employees to conduct their most sensitive business communications in ‘history off’ chats and then destroying those chats despite pending litigation to which they were relevant, including this case and related investigations and regulatory actions.” “plaintiffs’ requested remedy is appropriately tailored to attempt to ameliorate the prejudice and harm resulting from google’s calculated choice to evade discovery obligations and destroy evidence.” “plaintiffs have shown as far as is possible without the benefit of the documents google destroyed that the thousands upon thousands of deleted chats contained probative evidence that would have supported plaintiffs’ case.” “google’s plea for ‘lesser measures’ fails because google has not identified any ‘lesser measures’ that would be sufficient to redress plaintiffs’ loss.” remedy in pretrial order. orders a permissive adverse inference jury instruction, consistent with plaintiffs’ proposal. evidentiary hearing as to discovery violations summarized in epic’s opposition to google’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law under rule 50(b) or for a new trial under rule 59. “trial testimony from google witnesses … confirmed the destruction of hundreds of thousands of chats.” judge called kent walker’s testimony “evasive” and “materially inconsistent with testimony given by google’s witnesses”, saying his testimony “did not do anything to assuage [the court’s concerns.” judge remarked that “a mandatory adverse inference instruction would be amply warranted.” judge continued: “this presents the most serious and disturbing evidence i have ever seen in my decade on the bench with respect to a party intentionally suppressing potentially relevant evidence in litigation” and remarked on “rampant and systemic culture of evidence suppression at google.” judge said he intended to conduct his own independent investigation into “who is responsible within google for tolerating this culture of suppression.” order re google’s renewed motion for judgment as matter of law or for new trial in epic case. as to abuse of privilege designations: “[m]ore evidence emerged at trial of a frankly astonishing abuse of the attorney client privilege designation to suppress discovery. ceo pichai testified that there were occasions when he ‘marked e mails privileged, not because [he was] seeking legal advice but just to indicate that they were confidential,’ as he put it. he knew this was a misuse of the privilege. emily garber, a google in house attorney, testified that there was a practice at google of ‘loop[ing] in’ a lawyer based on a ‘misapprehension about the rules of privilege,’ and that google employees ‘believed that including [an in house lawyer] would make it more likely that the email would be considered privileged.’ garber called this ‘fake privilege,’ a practice that she appears to have found amusing rather than something a lawyer should have put an immediate and full stop to. on this record, there was no error in the court’s evidentiary ruling that epic could ‘present fake privilege’ and make arguments to the jury about it.” as to adverse inference: “the court determined after an evidentiary hearing held before trial that google had willfully failed to preserve relevant google chat communications, and allowed employees at all levels to hide material evidence. the evidence presented at trial added more fuel to this fire. as discussed, google in house attorney garber testified about the company practice of asserting a fake privilege to shield documents and communications from discovery. other witnesses also amplified the seriousness and pervasiveness of google’s preservation abuse. for example, google employee margaret lam, who worked on rsa issues, said in a chat message that she didn’t have a specific document because ‘competition legal might not want us to have a doc like that at all :).’ she was a party to other chats where, in a discussion about mada, she asked to turn history off because of ‘legal sensitivity’; she requested to turn history off in a different conversation about rsas, so there would be no ‘trail of us talking about waivers, etc.’” “overall, there was an abundance of pretrial and trial evidence demonstrating ‘an ingrained systemic culture of suppression of relevant evidence within google.’” as to the court’s evidentiary hearing to evaluate a mandatory adverse inference about google’s suppression of evidence: “the results of this hearing were disappointing. google’s chief legal officer, kent walker, was the main witness. despite the seriousness of these issues, and the likelihood that they could affect other litigation matters where google is a party, walker showed little awareness of the problems and had not investigated them in any way. much of his testimony was in direct opposition to the facts established at the prior google chat hearing. overall, walker did nothing to assuage the court’s concerns.” “even so, the court took the conservative approach of permitting the jury to make an adverse inference rather than requiring it to.” “google’s complaints about the inference instruction are wholly misdirected. it has not provided anything close to a good reason to conclude otherwise.” three separate judges recently remarked on google’s failure to preserve and produce documents relevant to antitrust claims against google. (more here.) in response, critics asked the state bar of california to investigate google general counsel kent walker for violating the california professional code of conduct in counseling google to destroy records to multiple ongoing lawsuits, including his 2008 memo instructing employees to “avoid inadvertent retention” of communications that might be “used against” google in litigation. from the timeline, one might think google’s document preservation practices were perfect until the recent matters. note memo written in 2008 versus litigation in 2023 2024 questioning document retention. if there were no discovery grievances during that fifteen year period, maybe this is the first time google failed to conduct itself properly during discovery   or at least the first time anyone figured out the problem and called google out on it. if so, maybe this is genuinely some kind of mistake, and maybe the sanction on google should be correspondingly reduced. not so. i have been following google litigation for longer than most. when i read the recent briefs and decisions about google’s failure to preserve documents, i immediately thought of a different episode, a decade and a half ago, when google failed to preserve documents relating to youtube despite knowing about likely litigation. when google considered acquiring youtube, copyright concerns loomed large. analyzing a sample of videos from youtube, credit suisse bankers found that more than 60% of youtube video views were “premium” (their euphemism for copyright), and only 10% of those were licensed. in this period, youtube faced competition from, among others, google video which took genuine steps to protect copyright. seeing youtube traffic soar while they struggled, google video staff were unsparing in their criticism of youtube’s approach to copyright, calling youtube, “a rogue enabler of content theft” “completely sustained by pirated content” “trafficking mostly illegal content”. (see also google’s slides about copyright risks and rights holder criticism.) concerned about a “precedent setting lawsuit” about copyright, google held back a 12.5% escrow from the youtube acquisition price to cover possible copyright liability. with google’s own staff explicitly criticizing youtube’s approach to copyright, and google’s term sheet discussing copyright risks, copyright litigation was not just foreseeable; it was actually foreseen, then measured and priced. under longstanding law, when litigation is reasonably foreseeable, a party is obliged to preserve documents for use as evidence. (see e.g. silvestri v. general motors, 271 f.3d 583, 590.) from the start, copyright infringement at youtube was far beyond that modest standard. so from the first moment google began to consider acquiring youtube, google should have preserved all relevant documents. certainly when the acquisition was completed, with copyright concerns still looming large and threats from rights holders ongoing, google was obliged to preserve. rather than preserve documents relating to copyright infringement at youtube, google did much the opposite. the most brazen missing emails are those sent and received by then ceo eric schmidt. in a may 6, 2009 deposition, schmidt indicated having about 30 computers (page 7 line 10) but configuring them “to not retain my e mails unless asked specifically” (17:9 10). asked whether he deleted them manually versus through some sort of automation, schmidt said “the answer would vary” (18:17 18). he said he would “delete or otherwise cause the emails that i had read to go way as quickly as possible” (18:24 to 19:2). asked whether he began to preserve documents after a copyright lawsuit was filed alleging widespread infringement at youtube, schmidt said “i did change my practice after this lawsuit was filed and i was notified” but refused to reveal details which he indicated were attorney client privileged. despite the possible change to schmidt’s retention practice after the viacom case was filed, searching his email for responsive documents yielded only 19. (hohengarten declaration ¶266) google’s acquisition of youtube was its largest transaction to date. it is inconceivable that the ceo of google would have just 19 emails pertaining to its largest acquisition. by his own admission, schmidt “deleted or otherwise cause[d]” to be deleted the huge number of otherwise responsive emails. thousands? tens of thousands? meanwhile, if he changed his document retention practice after the lawsuit was filed, why aren’t there more documents from that period? he wouldn’t say, and it seems the world will never know. in principle, excellent memory could stand in for the deleted emails. the google executive triumvirate schmidt, page, and brin had no shortage of intellectual firepower, and arguably they’d be expected to have correspondingly excellent memories. in fact, business insider specifically credits co founder larry page with a “photographic memory.” yet in his deposition about the youtube acquisition, page said he could not remember youtube’s copyright procedures, whether google wanted an indemnification from youtube for copyright liability, whether google executives discussed infringing content at youtube, whether he reviewed due diligence about the acquisition of youtube, whether he attended the board meeting when the google board approved acquiring youtube, or even whether he was in favor of the purchase or against it. to these questions among many others, page remarked “i don’t recall” and the like, over and over   by my count, 132 times. see the questions and verbatim quotes of page’s answers. (incidentally, even page’s deposition transcript almost didn’t see the light of day. initially, this deposition was filed under seal in viacom v. google litigation as hohengarten declaration part 11 (docket #222) attachment #20, redacted in full at google’s request. see also docket #247, ordering that redaction. but in rechecking the docket incidental to this article, i found later docket #324, which provides the transcript. last month i uploaded these files to courtlistener for public archival and review. page’s deposition is attachments 5, 6, and 7. until i uploaded page’s deposition transcript to courtlistener, these files lingered in pacer   unindexable by web search, available only for those who knew exactly where to look, knew how to log in, and were willing to pay per page access fees.) the memory of youtube co founder chad hurley was equally poor, but newly revealed in attachments 2 4 in the same docket #324. hurley had no difficulty recalling most aspects of product strategy, negotiation strategy, and distribution strategy. however he was unable to recall multiple subjects that were sensitive in light of the litigation: the basis of google’s valuation of youtube (part 1 pages 29 32), entire movies uploaded to youtube (part 2 pages 12 16), copyright enforcement policies (part 2 pages 19 20 and 26 30), and why youtube removed ads from watch pages (part 2 pages 23 24) hurley said he couldn’t recall. separately, viacom calls out google’s failure to produce relevant documents within its possession. for example, on march 22, 2006, youtube founder jawed karim presented to the youtube board of directors: as of today episodes and clips of the following well known shows can still be found: family guy, south park, mtv cribs, daily show, reno 911, dave chapelle. this content is an easy target for critics who claim that copyrighted content is entirely responsible for youtube’s popularity. although youtube is not legally required to monitor content (as we have explained in the press) and complies with dmca takedown requests, we would benefit from preemptively removing content that is blatantly illegal and likely to attract criticism. having acquired youtube, google should have received the materials previously presented to youtube’s board. yet google failed to produce this document to viacom in litigation. viacom only received it when karim, to his credit, produced it after he left youtube. viacom’s motion for summary judgment criticizes schmidt’s failure to preserve relevant documents, as well as what it calls witnesses’ “serial amnesia” and google’s other failures to produce. but viacom never filed a motion seeking sanctions for spoliation. the court ultimately granted google’s motion for summary judgment without ruling on google’s alleged failure to preserve, witnesses too conveniently forgetful, or any other discovery violation. rereading google’s deficient discovery in the viacom’s matter, in conjunction with 2023 2024 proceedings about google discovery violations, to me the picture became increasingly clear. google’s decision to evade discovery obligations isn’t a new problem, and it isn’t really a change. rather, this problem has been lingering for years, and has surely harmed scores of other litigants whose ability to prove their cases against google was stymied by google falling short of both the productions and the candor required by court rules. for broader thoughts and more on the other discovery disputes, see revisiting litigation alleging google discovery violations. this post is part of revisiting litigation alleging google discovery violations. viacom international, inc. v. youtube, inc.   docket. 1:07 cv 02103 lls (s.d.n.y.). filed march 13, 2007. first filing as to discovery violations: march 18, 2010. case allegation: “youtube’s website purports to be a forum for users to share their own original ‘user generated’ video content. in reality, however, a vast amount of that content consists of infringing copies of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.” complaint. case disposition: summary judgment granted for defendant based on the safe harbor provisions of the digital millenium copyright act. viacom appealed. the parties announced a settlement in march 2014 and announced that no money changed hands. viacom’s motion for summary judgment at heading “defendants cannot walk away from their contemporaneous internal documents.” as to youtube’s knowledge of copyright infringement: “the internal emails and memoranda of youtube’s founders and google’s senior executives discussed above make a compelling and indisputable record of defendants’ intent to use infringing videos clips to build the youtube business.” viacom’s motion, pages 5 to through 21, offer a dozen quotes supporting this contention, such as “we’re hosting copyrighted content” and “we need views, [but] i’m a little concerned with the recent supreme court ruling on copyright content.” “we’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.” as to youtube founder documents: “defendants fail[ed] to preserve and produce many key documents.” “almost none of … the internal emails and memoranda of youtube’s founders … were produced by google or youtube, which claims they were all lost.” “chad hurley, a founder and youtube’s chief executive from its inception to today, revealed for the first time [at] his deposition that he ‘lost all’ of his youtube emails for the key time period of this case.” as to documents from google ceo eric schmidt: he “claims to use and email from ‘probably 30’ different computers … [y]et [his] search for responsive materials [pertaining to youtube’s policies and practices and google’s acquisition] ‘yielded 19 documents.’ schmidt explained: ‘[i]t has been my practice for 30 years to not retain my emails unless asked specifically. … ‘it was my practice to delete or otherwise cause the emails that i had read to go away as quickly as possible’.” on witness memories: viacom remarks on “the ostensible memory failures of their key executives when deposed.” youtube founder chad hurley “developed serial amnesia” in his deposition. google go founder larry page “essentially disclaimed memory on any topic relevant to this litigation, even including, for example, whether he was in favor of google’s acquisition of youtube, even though it was google’s largest corporate transaction to date and viewed as transformative to its business.” (see excerpted deposition transcript.) “this court can decide whether these key executives and witnesses behaved with the level of candor and respect for the legal process that this court has a right to expect from senior executives of important public companies.” viacom never filed a motion for sanctions for spoliation. *** deposition of google then ceo eric schmidt including his explanation why he had just 19 emails pertaining to youtube (“[i]t has been my practice to not keep my e mails”) as well as claiming not to remember numerous facts about youtube and google’s strategy in video. deposition of google co founder larry page with analysis of his recollection. by my count, page said he did remember when asked about 132 aspects of google and youtube practices. deposition of youtube co founder chad hurley (parts 1, 2, 3). hurley had no difficulty recalling most aspects of product strategy, negotiation strategy, distribution strategy, and other topics. however he was unable to recall multiple subjects that were sensitive in light of the litigation: the basis of google’s valuation of youtube (part 1 pages 29 32), instances of entire movies uploaded to youtube (part 2 pages 12 16), copyright enforcement policies (part 2 pages 19 20 and 26 30), and why youtube removed ads from watch pages (part 2 pages 23 24). google’s opposition to plaintiffs’ motions for partial summary judgment. makes no mention of viacom’s allegations of documents inexplicably lost, of emails deleted, or witness’ memories. order of june 23, 2010 granted google’s motion for summary judgment without ruling on any of the discovery issues raised in viacom’s motion. in viacom v. google, viacom took the deposition of google then ceo eric schmidt. in sworn testimony, page explained why he had just 19 emails pertaining to youtube, then google’s largest acquisition. (source: hohengarten declaration ¶266) schmidt also repeatedly reported not remembering events and facts relating to youtube. viacom remarked in associated briefing: “this court can decide whether these key executives and witnesses behaved with the level of candor and respect for the legal process that this court has a right to expect from senior executives of important public companies.” schmidt’s testimony (as excerpted by viacom). as to document retention: “[some] people over time either delete or lose some of that e mail. it has been my practice for 30 years to not retain my e mails unless asked specifically.” “[i]t has been my practice to not keep my e mails.” “q: and is this on some sort of automatic system where they are deleted in the ordinary course over some ordinary period of time? a: depending on the e mail system and the company and so forth, the answer would vary.” as to document retention while at google: “it was my practice to delete or otherwise cause the e mails that i had read to go away as quickly as possible. q: within days? a: yes.” separately, schmidt claimed he didn’t remember multiple aspects of google’s strategy in video. a representative example: “q: [y]ou are aware, i assume, that the acquisition agreement contains an indemnification provision relating to copyright lawsuits? … a: yes. q: and was that discussed by the board …? a: yes. q: and do you remember that discussion, sir? a: no.” other subjects schmidt didn’t remember. in viacom v. google copyright litigation, viacom took the deposition of google co founder larry page. in a sworn deposition, page reported remembering very little about youtube and google video. viacom remarked in associated briefing: “this court can decide whether these key executives and witnesses behaved with the level of candor and respect for the legal process that this court has a right to expect from senior executives of important public companies.” page’s full deposition is available in parts 1, 2, 3. in the list below, i summarize the substantive questions asked of page, and quote his verbatim response to each. by my count, there were 132 distinct instances in which page could not recall the answer to a question. (in this count and list, i excluded questions about whether page received documents, excluded questions about why the reasons why he doesn’t remember, and excluded or grouped most repeat questions.) from my line by line review of page’s deposition: in recent competition proceedings against google, multiple courts have discussed whether google staff were forthright in their remarks (not to mention whether the company preserved and produced documents in accordance with court rules). see google discovery violations. discussions often turn back to a memo sent by google general counsel kent walker as well as bill coughran (then svp of engineering at google). in the dockets for these cases, this document appears in unformatted monospace with broken spacing between paragraphs, and in image form without indexing or searchability. i am therefore reposting it here in plain text. sent: september 16, 2008 2:09 pm subject: business communications in a complicated world confidential/please do not forward googlers   as you know, google continues to be in the midst of several significant legal and regulatory matters, including government reviews of our deal with yahoo!, various copyright, patent, and trademark lawsuits, and lots of other claims. given our continuing commitment to developing revolutionary products and doing disruptive things, we’re going to keep facing these kinds of challenges. so we’ve got two requests of you and one change to announce. first, please write carefully and thoughtfully. we’re an email and instant messaging culture. we conduct much of our work online. we believe that information is good. but anything you write can become subject to review in legal discovery, misconstrued, or taken out of context, and may be used against you or us in ways you wouldn’t expect. writing stuff that’s sarcastic, speculative, or not fully informed inevitably creates problems in litigation. in your communications, please avoid stating legal conclusions. speculation about whether something might breach a complex contract, or whether it might violate a law somewhere in the world, is often wrong and rarely helpful. so please do think twice before you write about hot topics, don’t comment before you have all the facts, and direct questions regarding continuing litigation holds and any legal and/or regulatory matters involving google to the friendly (albeit lawyerly) folks at [redacted]@google.com second, remember that these same rules apply not just to gmail but also to google talk and all other forms of electronic communication (for example wiki’s, doc’s, spreadsheets, etc.). we end up reviewing millions of pages of these communications as part of producing documents in regulatory and litigation matters   and we’re working together to streamline and simplify that process. to help avoid inadvertent retention of instant messages, we have decided to make “off the record” the google corporate default setting for google talk. we’ll also be providing this option to our google apps enterprise customers. you should see this new default setting taking effect over the next few days. you will still be able to save talk conversations that are useful to you   but please remember that “on the record” conversations become part of your (more or less) permanent record and are added to google’s long term document storehouse. if you’ve received notice that you’re subject to a litigation hold, and you must chat regarding matters covered by that hold, please make sure that those chats are “on the record”. finally, remember that even when you’re “off the record”, your chat partner may be recording the conversation, so always take care with what you write. thanks for your help and understanding on this. let one of us know if you have any questions. bill coughran kent walker see also required “communicate with care” training. see also antitrust basics for search team (march 2011), recommending word choice for google employees discussing competition matters.

a new email was leaked as part of the doj investigation, this was from jerry dischler, the vice president of google ads. the email was to prabhakar raghavan, who leads up all of google search including google search and google ads but also to the leads of the chrome team. it seems to be asking primarily for the chrome team to somehow "inject" "queries asap from chrome." the google ads team wants this to continue the "shaking the cushions" to find more revenue to hit revenue targets for the company. this was in addition to the raising ad prices in an auction bidding setting, for google ads to hit revenue targets. the email goes on to also request "other ranking tweaks we can push out very quickly" from the google team in order to improve ad revenue. it also does mention the mobile search redesign google was about to release weeks later that "will be very revenue positive" according to the email. it is a hard email to see and fully understand and it is shocking this email was sent in the first place. here is a copy of the email from @pdrmnvd on twitter: here is the text of that email: just looking at this very tactically, and sorry to go into this level of detail, but based on where we are i'm afraid it's warranted. we are short % queries and are ahead on ads launches so are short  % revenue vs. plan. if we don't hit plan, our sales team doesn't get its quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street's expectations again, which is not what ruth signaled to the street so we get punished pretty badly in the market. we are shaking the cushions on launches and have some candidates in may that will help, but if these break in mid late may we only get half a quarter of impact or less, which means we need**%+ excess to where we are today and can't do it alone. the search team is working together with us to accelerate a launch out of a new mobile layout by the end of may that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won't be enough. our best shot at making the quarter is if we get an injection of at least%, ideally, redacted%, queries asap from chrome. some folks on our side are running a more detailed, finance blessed, what if analysis on this and should be done with that in a couple of days, but i expect that these will be the rough numbers. the question we are all faced with is how badly do we want to hit our numbers this quarter? we need to make this choice asap. i care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another fedacie in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team. i'm super proud of our pure approach at google and don't want to poison the culture of any team, and this is why i haven't pushed harder. i also don't want the message to be "we're doing this thing because the ads team needs revenue." that's a very negative message. but my question to all of you is   based on above   what do we think is the best decision for google overall? in that spirit, do we think it's worth reconsidering a rollback? or are there very scrappy tactical tweaks we can launch with holdback that we know will increase queries? (for example, can we increase vertical space between the search box/icons/feed on new tab to make search more prominent? are there other ranking tweaks we can push out very quickly? are there other entry points we haven't focused on that we could push on soon?) just to be clear, the reason i haven't pushed harder on a rollback so far is because i don't want the message to be. would love your thoughts and sorry for the long email. best,  jerry. again, it doesn't seem like search leads are on this email but it does imply search changes so i am not sure. don't forget, google has said numerous times that google search quality does not talk to google   ever. forum discussion at x. the content at the search engine roundtable are the sole opinion of the authors and in no way reflect views of rustybrick ®, inc copyright © 1994 2025 rustybrick ®, inc. web development all rights reserved. this work by search engine roundtable is licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 united states license. creative commons license and youtube videos under youtube's tos.

a recently disclosed email has revealed an intriguing conversation between jerry dischler, vice president of google ads, and the heads of the chrome team. dischler sought assistance in achieving revenue objectives for the company. the email highlights the potential manipulation of search results and raises questions about google’s commitment to providing unbiased, organic search results and its ethical business practices. the email reveals dischler’s apprehensions, as google ads might not achieve its targets. a failure to reach these targets could have severe implications on the company’s stock value, investor confidence, and subsequent expansion plans. furthermore, if the underperformance continues, advertisers may seek alternative platforms for their digital marketing campaigns. the email also alludes to a forthcoming mobile layout aimed at providing users with a more streamlined, accessible experience. despite the expected success of this development, it still falls short in achieving the company’s long term objectives. prompt action is emphasized in the email to maintain company morale and avoid negative market outcomes. essential strategies must be developed and implemented to prioritize employee well being and ensure long term sustainability, mitigating potential risks and strengthening google’s position in the industry. though the search team was not included in the email, potential changes to search functionality must be addressed. these changes could impact user experience and satisfaction with search results. challenges arising from implementing these alterations must be a priority for maintaining overall efficiency and effectiveness of the search system. google has consistently maintained that chrome and search operate as separate entities. therefore, collaboration between these two divisions marks a significant departure from standard practices. this integration could lead to a more streamlined and efficient browsing experience for users, allowing seamless transitions between google products. however, it raises concerns about user privacy and information security, as the potential for data sharing between divisions could put sensitive information at risk. the revelation of this email paints a picture of the internal struggles at google, with the company needing to find a balance between its revenue objectives and its commitment to an unbiased search experience. while collaboration between the chrome and search teams could bring potential benefits for user experience, it comes with risks for privacy and security. ultimately, the success of google’s future strategies will hinge on how effectively they address these concerns and maintain the trust of their users. the email conversation revealed jerry dischler’s request for assistance from the chrome team to help achieve revenue objectives for google. it highlights concerns about potential manipulation of search results and raises questions about google’s commitment to providing unbiased, organic search results and its ethical business practices. if google ads fails to reach its targets, it could negatively impact the company’s stock value, investor confidence, and future expansion plans. advertisers might also seek alternative platforms for their digital marketing campaigns if underperformance continues. the new mobile layout is a forthcoming development aimed at providing users with a more streamlined and accessible experience. however, despite its expected success, it might not be enough to achieve the company’s long term objectives. prompt action is stressed to maintain company morale and avoid negative market outcomes. implementing essential strategies to prioritize employee well being and ensure long term sustainability could mitigate potential risks and strengthen google’s position in the industry. changes to search functionality could impact user experience and satisfaction with search results. addressing the challenges arising from implementing these alterations must be a priority to maintain the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the search system. collaboration between chrome and search could lead to a streamlined and efficient browsing experience for users. however, it raises concerns about user privacy and information security, as the potential for data sharing between divisions could put sensitive information at risk. the success of google’s future strategies will depend on how effectively they address user privacy and security concerns while maintaining an unbiased search experience. ultimately, the company’s ability to balance its revenue objectives and maintain users’ trust will be crucial to its success. first reported on: seroundtable.com featured image credit: photo by lukas; pexels; thank you! dmnews, or digital marketing news, is a leading industry publication for digital marketing professionals and internet entrepreneurs. abby miller has led dmnews as the editor in chief since february of 2020. her editorial team edits, revises, and proofs each article on dmnews. this includes articles that date back to 1999!

download your copy of seo trends 2025 and discover what to be hopeful about in a changing search world. read insights from marketing agencies, explore strategies for success in 2025, and provide actionable takeaways to help your agency thrive. join for an insightful discussion designed for small business and agency marketers eager to transform their lead generation and conversion strategies. discover actionable insights for crafting authentic impactful campaigns and enhancing your seo efforts, while elevating your brand. join us as we demystify the latest trends, from ai to geo, and provide actionable insights to help you achieve tangible results in 2025. download this actionable guide and learn how programmatic seo can deliver exponential growth for your business. united states antitrust lawsuit uncovers scheme by google search, chrome and ads execs to increase ad revenues united states antitrust lawsuit against google uncovers emails of executives from google search, chrome and ads discussing schemes for increasing ad revenue. there are two documents, one from 2019 that features top google executives from search, chrome and ads hatching plans for pumping up ad revenues before the end of the quarter. at one point they even discuss the impact on google’s stock price and their own personal fortunes. another document, dating from 2017, acknowledges reluctance of the search team to do anything that could negatively affect users. the executives who were a part of the email discussion consisted of top executives, including ben gomes, whose career spanned senior vice president of search, news, google assistant and education. he has worked on how google ranked websites and was responsible for instant search, spelling corrections, among other projects. the pdf documenting the email discussion appears to contradict google’s longtime insistence that that the search team is firewalled from the advertising side of the company. but again, these are top executives having a discussion, not the search team itself, apart from ben gomes. googlers have made many statements over the years, at search conferences and in google hangouts and on twitter that the search side of google does not coordinate with the advertising side. for example, in a may 8, 2015 google hangout, google’s john mueller explained how the search team is blocked off from the ads team. the question he answered was about a rumor that google makes seo more difficult in order to make more money from the ads. mueller responded: “this is definitely not true. so, this is something where we have a very, very strong firewall essentially between the paid side of google and the organic search side. and that’s not something that we would kind of connect, where we would say we would make algorithms that make the search results worse so that people go and click on ads more. …so, it’s something where we’re not artificially trying to make it more complicated or harder or the search results worse so that people click on ads. …so, that’s something where on the one hand, we really have the strong separation between the two sides. on the other hand, we really need to keep that upright, so that we can make sure our search results are really as neutral as possible, as high quality as possible and really provide what users want.” the 2019 email is from a google ads executive jerry dischler. it was sent to a chromeos executive named john maletis. also in on the email discussion is ben gomes who worked on the google search algorithm since the earliest days, and prabhakar raghavan, an executive vice president who has been involved in the search side as well as with google ads. google ads executive dischler wrote: “the search team is working together with us to accelerate a launch of a new mobile layout by the end of may that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won’t be enough. our best shot at making the quarter is if we get an injection of at least [redacted]% , queries asap from chrome.” he followed those remarks by lamenting how disappointed all the different team members will be should google’s stock price drop because the advertising side didn’t perform well enough. frankly, it’s shocking that anyone involved with google’s algorithm is in a discussion with the chromeos and advertising teams about ways to artificially increase search queries in order to help meet the advertising side’s performance goals for the quarter. and as disappointing as that is, it gets even worse. the executives go on to discuss how not meeting their revenue goals will impact their personal wealth. dischler continued: “i care more about revenue that the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another $[redacted] in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team. in the next paragraph he expresses pride in google’s “pure approach” and claims he doesn’t want to “poison the culture of any team.” and with his next breath this is where he starts handing out the poison, saying: “i don’t want the message to be ‘we’re doing this thing because the ads team needs revenue.’ that’s a very negative message. but my question to you is   based on above   what do we think is the best decision for google overall? …are there other ranking tweaks we can push out quickly?” a high ranking chrome executive, anil sabharwal, responds by affirming they should go ahead with changes to search ranking (ostensibly to benefit google ads, which is the context of the entire email). tellingly, he worries about “bad press” at the upcoming google io event. sabharwal responded: “…we don’t want bad press around io, let’s roll out #1 and #2 now and get the benefits. let’s also start the search ranking experiments asap and roll those out once we get the data.” later on in the email chain, anil sabharwal questions how far the executives are willing to go in terms of the negative impact to the user experience, long term retention and team motivation. he then talks about changes to search ranking: “we are making progress here, and i’m hopeful the search ranking improvements in omnibox will also be a material increase in sqv, but i understand we need to do more.” the “improvements” being discussed are a way to increase search queries and presumably ad revenues. in another part of the email chain jerry dischler remarks on the short term gains from reversing “query driven revenue loss” and references experiments on the chrome and search side. he then remarks on how they need to be more aggressive about raising the advertising revenues. dischler writes: “it’s a decent start but collectively we need to figure out how to do more and this work is urgent because we continue to face these strong headwinds in q2.” anil sabharwal, the chrome executive, later discusses the changes to chrome, specifically the omnibox changes, that are designed to increase search queries, describing the work of the chrome team for increasing search queries as “heroic.” he wrote: “1…we were able to get launch approval to rollout two changes (entity suggest and tail suggest) that increase queries by [redacted]% and [redacted]% respectively. 2. we are going to immediately start experiments to improve search ranking in the omnibox (more search results and nudging search to the top).” the changes google made to chrome were so bad that the experiments were noticed by commenters on reddit. the executive found it humorous that the redditors thought that the experiment was a “bug.” another government exhibit contains a discussion given in 2017 where the ads side expresses frustration with the wall separating the ads team from the search team. the discussion calls attention to talk that the search side should consider “query quotas.” the document reveals: “ads/revenues …the old model of things getting thrown over the wall to them has outlived its usefulness… there’s talk of suggesting that the search team consider new goals around query quotas, focusing on monetizable queries, returning towards focusing search experience on high revenue countries…” the document outlines the fears of the search team about metrics that could lead to “unnatural search experiences” from the quest for ad revenue. so it’s not that the search team itself was complicit in rigging search in service of more ad revenues. the second document acknowledges that the search team itself didn’t want to engage in activities that would negatively impact the users. read the entire email document in pdf format. read the second exhibit in pdf format that kicks around the idea about “query quotas” watch john mueller discuss the firewall between the search and ads at the 41 minute mark: i have 25 years hands on experience in seo, evolving along with the search engines by keeping up with the latest ... conquer your day with daily search marketing news. join our newsletter. get your daily dose of search know how. in a world ruled by algorithms, sej brings timely, relevant information for seos, marketers, and entrepreneurs to optimize and grow their businesses    and careers. copyright © 2025 search engine journal. all rights reserved. published by alpha brand media.

supported by as the government wraps up its case in the landmark monopoly trial, it has built a picture of how google became dominant in online search   and the harms that it says resulted. by david mccabececilia kang and steve lohr reporting from the e. barrett prettyman u.s. courthouse in washington since sept. 12., the department of justice and a group of state attorneys general have questioned more than 30 witnesses as they try to prove that google broke antitrust laws, in a landmark monopoly trial that may affect the power of the technology industry. the government is now wrapping up its side in the case   u.s. et al. v. google   setting the stage for the internet giant to mount its defense starting this week. two prime threads have emerged from the government’s case: what it said google did to illegally maintain its search and search ads monopolies and how those practices harmed consumers and advertisers. we lay out the main arguments. on the first day of the trial, the justice department said google had paid apple and other tech platforms more than $10 billion a year to make itself the default search engine on the iphone and other devices. it was perhaps the most important piece of evidence to support the government’s central argument: that google broke the law by using multibillion dollar contracts to be the default search engine across the internet so it could maintain its monopoly. the eye popping value of the deals had not been revealed before and helped the justice department set the tone for the trial. in this 2017 internal google document, an executive compares the search ads business to that of selling cigarettes or drugs. the executive testified at the trial that he produced the document during a communications training where he was practicing how to use hyperbole to get someone’s attention. in one 2019 email, a google executive, jerry dischler, wrote to a colleague that the company was at risk of missing its revenue targets.

google’s longtime advertising chief jerry dischler will step down from his role   weeks after he drew scrutiny over bombshell admissions about the company’s ad practices at the landmark antitrust trial targeting its search empire. dischler, who rose to the title of vice president of advertising products at google in 2020, will be replaced by vidhya srinivasan, an ad executive who joined the company in 2019. srinivasan previously held roles at amazon and ibm. “after more than 15 years on google’s ads business, jerry dischler decided to take on a new challenge,” google senior vice president prabhakar raghavan said in a statement wednesday. “our ads business helps millions of businesses thrive and we’re grateful to jerry for his many accomplishments in this area.” “with a track record of significant innovations across privacy, measurement, ai, search ads and beyond, vidhya is the natural successor for this role,” raghavan said. dischler had raised eyebrows in september after admitting under questioning by justice department antitrust lawyers that google had silently raised ad prices within its search results in order to hit revenue goals. “we tend not to tell advertisers about pricing changes,” dischler said in the sept. 18 court appearance. dischler also confirmed the accuracy of previous sworn testimony from 2020 in which he told federal investigators that the price changes resulted in hikes from 5% to 10% for advertisers on certain search queries. raising prices any higher would be a “dangerous thing to do” because it could lead advertisers to turn to rivals like tiktok or meta, he added. doj lawyers also referenced a may 2019 email in which dischler expressed concern about google missing its quarterly revenue targets and discussed efforts at “shaking the cushions” to avoid hurting its stock price. when reached for comment, a google spokesperson said the move was dischler’s decision, not the company’s, and had nothing to do with his appearance at the antitrust trial. the spokesperson declined to say whether dischler was shifting to a new role at google or had left the company entirely. the spokesperson added that srinivasan is well positioned to lead google’s ad business into the future, having worked most recently on google’s monetization strategy for generative ai features that are being integrated into its search engine. that included a leading role in google’s recent launch of “performance max,” a highly touted ai tool that helps determine where ads should run across the company’s websites. google has said the tool will boost performance on ad campaigns according to client objectives. the google search antitrust trial wrapped up its 10 week run earlier this month. judge amit mehta is expected to issue a ruling on whether google violated antitrust law by mid 2024. google controls approximately 90% of the online search market, according to figures cited at the trial. the company’s ad business more than $220 billion in 2022 alone. through the first three quarters of 2023, google has already surpassed that figure. dischler has played a key role in shaping google’s dominant ad business, including the company’s recent emphasis on integrated artificial intelligence tools into its search engine. megan gray, a prominent antitrust watchdog and ceo of graymatters law & policy, downplayed the possibility of a connection between dischler’s testimony and his departure. “other witnesses were ex googlers. he could’ve resigned earlier if he wanted,” gray said. “and it’s not like he did anything fire able.” business insider was the first to report on dischler’s exit. as google’s new ad chief, srinivasan will be tasked with steering the business during a period of unprecedented scrutiny over the company’s practices. as the post reported, some us lawmakers and policy experts have warned that the implementation of ai tools, including google’s bard chatbot, could further entrench the company’s alleged monopoly over online search. google also faces a separate federal lawsuit alleging it has built a monopoly over the digital advertising market, as well as a separate suit from newspaper giant gannett accusing it of “a sophisticated, anticompetitive and deceptive scheme” to dominate online ads.

google’s long serving advertising chief, jerry dischler, has announced his departure from the company, mere weeks after his testimony during a landmark antitrust trial. dischler, who attained the position of vice president of advertising products in 2020, will be succeeded by vidhya srinivasan, a seasoned advertising executive with a background at amazon and ibm, reported the new york post. the announcement was made by google senior vice president prabhakar raghavan, who expressed gratitude for dischler’s contributions to the company’s advertising business over his more than 15 years of service. raghavan emphasized the pivotal role that advertising plays in enabling millions of businesses to thrive. vidhya srinivasan, the incoming ad chief, was highlighted for her significant contributions to privacy, measurement, artificial intelligence, and search ads during her tenure at google. raghavan asserted that her track record of innovation positions her as a natural successor to dischler. according to the post, dischler’s departure comes on the heels of his controversial testimony during the recent antitrust trial, where he admitted, under questioning from the justice department, that google had quietly increased ad prices within its search results to meet revenue targets. this revelation raised eyebrows, as dischler acknowledged that advertisers were not typically informed of such pricing changes. in september, dischler confirmed previous sworn testimony from 2020, admitting that these pricing adjustments led to increases ranging from 5% to 10% for advertisers on specific search queries. he cautioned against raising prices further, citing the potential risk of advertisers turning to competitors such as tiktok or meta. the antitrust trial also referenced a may 2019 email from dischler expressing concern about google missing quarterly revenue targets and exploring strategies to avoid negatively impacting its stock price. a google spokesperson clarified that dischler’s decision to step down was personal and unrelated to his appearance at the antitrust trial. however, they did not disclose whether dischler would be taking on a new role within google or leaving the company entirely. srinivasan, well regarded for her recent work on google’s monetization strategy for generative ai features, played a key role in the launch of “performance max,” an ai tool designed to enhance ad campaign performance according to client objectives. french prosecutors open investigation into x’s algorithmic bias feb 8, 2025 by cpi meta urges us appeals court to uphold $725 million privacy settlement feb 8, 2025 by cpi unitedhealth group withdraws motion to dismiss antitrust challenge feb 8, 2025 by cpi tech firms raise alarm over ex amazon exec leading uk competition regulator feb 8, 2025 by cpi us consumers file lawsuit to block nippon steel’s acquisition of us steel feb 8, 2025 by cpi antitrust chronicle®   international criminal enforcement jan 23, 2025 by cpi the antitrust division’s recent work to combat international cartels jan 23, 2025 by emma burnham & benjamin christenson information sharing: the new frontier of u.s. antitrust enforcement jan 23, 2025 by brian p. quinn, casey kovarik & michael tubach the key role of guidelines on exchanges of information among competitors and the divergent transatlantic paths jan 23, 2025 by rosa abrantes metz & albert metz leniency, whistleblowers, and compliance jan 23, 2025 by richard powers, tara o’malley & cory gordon

a current google executive testified that the company has silently raised ad prices within its search results in order to hit revenue goals   and that the stealth changes resulted in hikes from 5% to 10% for advertisers. the bombshell admission by jerry dischler, google’s vice president of advertising products, came monday during the landmark trial in response to questions from justice department antitrust lawyers who say the big tech firm has built an illegal monopoly over online search to drive massive revenue growth. dischler said google often tweaks ad sales metrics for its advertising auctions, which determine which ads appear as top results in response to user prompts on the company’s search engine, by raising rates or the minimum required spending to secure placement. “we tend not to tell advertisers about pricing changes,” dischler said on the stand, according to bloomberg. dischler also acknowledged the accuracy of previous sworn testimony he gave in 2020, when he told investigators that the changes could mean increases ranging from 5% to as high as 10% for some search queries. dischler claimed that price increases beyond 10% would be a “dangerous thing to do” because it could drive google advertisers to simply relocate to rival platforms like meta or tiktok   though he conceded it would not necessarily drive away enough clients to hurt revenue. the feds also cited a may 2019 email in which dischler and other google ad employees fretted about “shaking the cushions” to hit the company’s publicly stated revenue targets put forward by cfo ruth porat and avoid a bloodbath for its stock price. if google missed its “quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street’s expectations again, which is not what ruth signaled to the street, so we will get punished pretty bad in the market,” dischler said at the time. dischler, who finished testifying on tuesday, said google earned more than $100 billion in search ad revenue in 2020, which comprised the bulk of the company’s overall proceeds. google defines an advertising auction as “the process that happens with each google search to decide which ads will appear for that specific search and in which order those ads will show on the page.” several factors determine top placement, including bidding price and the relevance of a particular ad’s keywords, according to the company. much of the trial at the federal court in washington, d.c., which is in its second week, has been held out of earshot of reporters after judge amit mehta agreed with google lawyer john schmidtlein that all discussions about the tech giant’s pricing strategies be in a closed session. on wednesday, the hearing again began behind closed doors with google finance vp mike roszak being questioned for the second day, according to bloomberg reporter leah nylen. the doj has also been ordered to remove all files pertaining to the case that were posted to its website by mehta, an obama era appointee presiding over the 10 week case, nylen reported on tuesday. the justice department has stated that google spends more than $10 billion annually on payments to prominent partners, from smartphone makers like apple and samsung to mobile carriers like verizon and at&t, to maintain a dominant hold on online search. google, meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing and argued that users opt to use its search engine because it is a high quality service, not because it is enabled by default on a variety of smartphones and other devices. the company said the payments to partners are fair compensation. if google were to lose the 10 week antitrust trial   the largest of its kind in more than two decades   it could be required to sell off portions of its business or end some practices. a verdict is expected next year.

google has admitted to quietly adjusting advertising auctions to hit revenue targets, sometimes increasing ad prices by as much as 5%. reportedly, the search giant makes changes to its advertising auctions without telling advertisers, with the goal of meeting its revenue targets. these changes can include increasing the cost of ads and the minimum spending on ads, known as reserve pricing. the shocking revelation was made by jerry dischler, google’s vice president of advertising products, on monday during the landmark trial in response to questions from justice department antitrust lawyers. according to bloomberg, dischler said google tweaks its auction process in ways that might have quietly raised ad prices by up to 10% for some queries, without telling advertisers. he added, “we tend not to tell advertisers about pricing changes.” google’s ad auction system is hard to understand and advertisers can’t see how much their ads cost. this is especially concerning for advertisers who target competitive keywords, as they may be paying much more for their ads than they think. it is also unfair to advertisers who are trying to control their advertising spending, as their ads may not show up as often as they expected or they may overspend on their campaigns. in its defence, google says it changes its ad auction system to make the user experience better and to make sure advertisers get their money’s worth. however, critics argue that google’s ad auction practices are not clear enough and that google is manipulating the system to increase its own revenue. google ad price hike: is your business at risk? the digital marketing community is quite concerned after google’s admission and many marketers are now wondering if the search engine manipulates smart bidding for profit too. digital marketing expert anthony higman shared on x: “so i always knew this was the case, but to see it actually stated by the vp of ads is astounding! and what do you think smart bidding is? a smart way for google to be able to easily manipulate ad prices! smh.” collin schmelebeck, us navy veteran & ecommerce + saas google ads wizard, said on x: “a wild concept in google ads revolves around ad rank thresholds. something called reserve price. even if you’re the only ad that appears due to competitors not meeting the specific ad auctions’ threshold. you’re still paying a “reserve price” that's defined by google. wild.” joe youngblood, seo & digital marketing consultant, wrote a lengthy post on x, “this might sound crazy, but if i was rich and had $$ to burn i'd be shorting google/alphabet right now (or considering doing it soon). why? just admitted to manipulating their ad auctions to increase revenue without telling advertisers…” google on trial: what’s at stake? google is facing a major antitrust lawsuit from the us government, which alleges that the company has abused its market power in the search engine market. the government claims that google has used a variety of anticompetitive tactics to maintain its dominance, including: the government is seeking a structural injunction against google, which would require the company to divest some of its assets or change its business practices. if the government is successful, the case could have a major impact on the search engine market and the way we use the internet. in addition to the us justice department lawsuit, google is also facing antitrust investigations in other countries, including the european union and india. the outcome of these antitrust cases could have a significant impact on google’s business and its ability to maintain its dominance in the search engine market. why has google been tweaking search ad prices? by tweaking ad prices, google wanted to increase search revenue at a time when there was little business activity. in 2019, an email chain involving dischler and fellow google executive anil sabharwal read, “we are shaking the cushions.” the email also shared other options for boosting revenue that include making search more prominent for chrome users. it further said, “if we don’t meet quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street’s expectations again, which is not what ruth signalled to the street, so we will get punished pretty bad in the market.” “i care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for our teams trying to live in high cost areas another $100,000 in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team.” speaking about this email during the antitrust trial, dischler said his team’s goal was “to get creative so we could meet our quota.” search ads account for more than 60% of google’s total revenue. according to dischler, google generated more than $100 billion from search ads in 2020. he also said in court that 10% was the upper limit and raising prices by 15% would have been “a dangerous thing to do”. what is google’s stance on ad price hike? following dischler’s comments, a google spokesperson told search engine land: “search ads costs are the result of a real time auction where advertisers never pay more than their maximum bid. we’re constantly launching improvements designed to make ads better for both advertisers and users.” “our quality improvements help eliminate irrelevant ads, improve relevance, drive greater advertiser value, and deliver high quality user experiences.”

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create account | retrieve password owl writes: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming names/#prabhakar raghavan all digital businesses have the technical capacity to enshittify: the ability to change the underlying functions of the business from moment to moment and user to user, allowing for the rapid transfer of value between business customers, end users and shareholders: which raises an important question: why do companies enshittify at a specific moment, after refraining from enshittifying before? after all, a company always has the potential to benefit by treating its business customers and end users worse, by giving them a worse deal. if you charge more for your product and pay your suppliers less, that leaves more money on the table for your investors. of course, it's not that simple. while cheating, price gouging, and degrading your product can produce gains, these tactics also threaten losses. you might lose customers to a rival, or get punished by a regulator, or face mass resignations from your employees who really believe in your product. companies choose not to enshittify their products...until they choose to do so. one theory to explain this is that companies are engaged in a process of continuous assessment, gathering data about their competitive risks, their regulators' mettle, their employees' boldness. when these assessments indicate that the conditions are favorable to enshittification, the ceo walks over to the big "enshittification" lever on the wall and yanks it all the way to max. uncle_al writes: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the men who killed google/ the story begins on february 5th 2019, when ben gomes, google's head of search, had a problem. jerry dischler, then the vp and general manager of ads at google, and shiv venkataraman, then the vp of engineering, search and ads on google properties, had called a "code yellow" for search revenue due to, and i quote, "steady weakness in the daily numbers" and a likeliness that it would end the quarter significantly behind. for those unfamiliar with google's internal scientology esque jargon, let me explain. a "code yellow" isn't, as you might think, a crisis of moderate severity. the yellow, according to steven levy's tell all book about google, refers to   and i promise that i'm not making this up   the color of a tank top that former vp of engineering wayne rosing used to wear during his time at the company. it's essentially the equivalent of defcon 1 and activates, as levy explained, a war room like situation where workers are pulled from their desks and into a conference room where they tackle the problem as a top priority. any other projects or concerns are sidelined. in emails released as part of the department of justice's antitrust case against google, dischler laid out several contributing factors   search query growth was "significantly behind forecast," the "timing" of revenue launches was significantly behind, and a vague worry that "several advertiser specific and sector weaknesses" existed in search. anyway, a few days beforehand on february 1 2019, kristen gil, then google's vp business finance officer, had emailed shashi thakur, then google's vp of engineering, search and discover, saying that the ads team had been considering a "code yellow" to "close the search gap [it was] seeing," vaguely referring to how critical that growth was to an unnamed "company plan." to be clear, this email was in response to thakur stating that there is "nothing" that the search team could do to operate at the fidelity of growth that ads had demanded. shashi forwarded the email to gomes, asking if there was any way to discuss this with sundar pichai, google's ceo, and declaring that there was no way he'd sign up to a "high fidelity" business metric for daily active users on search. thakur also said something that i've been thinking about constantly since i read these emails: that there was a good reason that google's founders separated search from ads. on february 2, 2019, just one day later, thakur and gomes shared their anxieties with nick fox, a vice president of search and google assistant, entering a multiple day long debate about google's sudden lust for growth. the thread is a dark window into the world of growth focused tech, where thakur listed the multiple points of disconnection between the ads and search teams, discussing how the search team wasn't able to finely optimize engagement on google without "hacking engagement," a term that means effectively tricking users into spending more time on a site, and that doing so would lead them to "abandon work on efficient journeys." in one email, fox adds that there was a "pretty big disconnect between what finance and ads want" and what search was doing. when gomes pushed back on the multiple requests for growth, fox added that all three of them were responsible for search, that search was "the revenue engine of the company," and that bartering with the ads and finance teams was potentially "the new reality of their jobs." on february 6th 2019, gomes said that he believed that search was "getting too close to the money," and ended his email by saying that he was "concerned that growth is all that google was thinking about." [ed's comment: this is only the beginning of the story. go to the link if you wish to read more.  jr] original submission #1 original submission #2 canopic jug writes: here are two related essays on software freedom in light of the current environment where platform decay has become the norm. lead developer of linux libre, fsfla board member, and previous fsf board member, alexandre oliva wrote a piece back in june about platform decay (also known colloquially as enshittification) and how to fight it through software freedom. it's from his may 5th, 2024 libreplanet presentation with the same title ( video and slides ). this weekend, developer daniel cantarín wrote a follow up addressing the nature of software freedom and the increasing communication, philosophical, and political barriers to actually achieving software freedom. the two essays are essentially in agreement but raise different points and priorities. alexandre oliva's essay includes the following: [...] software (static) enshittification back in the time when most users could choose which version of a program they wanted to run, upgrading software was not something that happened automagically. installing a program involved getting a copy of its installable media, and if you wanted to install a newer version, you had to get a copy of the installable media for the newer version. you could install them side by side, and if you found that the newer version was lacking some feature important to you, or it didn't serve you well, you could roll back to the older version. this created a scenario in which the old and the new versions competed for users, so in order for the newer version to gain adoption, it had to be more attractive to users than the older one. it had to offer more interesting features, and if it dropped features or engaged in enshittification, it would need even more interesting features to make up. this limits how much enshittification can be imposed on users in newer versions. it was much harder to pull feature from under users in that static arrangement. software (dynamic) enshittification but now most users are mistreated with imposed updates, and since they are required to be online all the time, they are vulnerable all the time, and they can't go back to an earlier version that served them well. the following are the most enshittifiable arrangements to offer computing facilities to users. most enshittifiable so far, homer simpson would presumably point out. apps that run on remotely controlled telephones (trapps) and that are typically automatically updated from exclusive app stores, and their counterparts that run on increasingly enshittified computers (crapps) are cases in which the programs are installed on your own computer, but are controlled by someone else. they've come to be called apps, so that you'll think of them as appliances rather than as something you can and should be able to tinker with. web sites that, every time you visit them, install and demand to run javascrapped programs on your computer, are a case in which, even if the program is technically free software, in this setting, someone else controls which version you get to run, and what that version does. and then, there are the situations in which, instead of getting a copy of a program, you're offered a service that will do your computing for you, under somebody else's control, substituting software that could have been respectful of your freedom. [...] is it really just a single guy responsible? or just the usual short term vs long term corporate thinking? how does long term thinking shift to short term thinking? my take is that this guy was extra special, both having a record of failure going in, combined with a key role in undermining and eliminating the most influential long term thinker at the company. "plus google search despite definitely getting worse, is still better overall than their competitors " i disagree. google isn't better anymore. you have to scroll down half a page to get past the adds to the results. in my experience it struggles to find things unless you have good search terms. it has trouble find any results that aren't adds if your search is too close to advertised products. it used to be that google always had what you were looking for on the first page, now its doom scroll, the adds repeat (how you know you're on the second page), but the results are no longer on topic by page 2. i mean it used to be that if google couldn't find it, it didn't exist. but i've had to search on another engine recently because google couldn't find it. i was pretty surprised the first time, when it was on the first page of another engine. the invasion of privacy...google uses everything they can to collect data about you, to target adds: your searches, your browser, your telephone's microphone, your texts. if they can collect it they do. there is a reason they are able to get billions of dollars of add revenue. their add targeting is 2nd to none. i enjoyed the days before the internet. i enjoyed watching and participating in the growth of the trade of information as we developed and monetized the internet. we've created a monster. i enjoyed the days before the internet. i enjoyed watching and participating in the growth of the trade of information as we developed and monetized the internet. we've created a monster. i still like better the "tears in the rain" monologue, but yours is not too bad :grin: the internet sucks?! in case you weren't being sarcastic, oh heck no! the internet is the biggest accomplishment of the last millennium! it's a monster slaying savior! it's right up there with the gutenberg press, which it is slaying. it's also slaying antiquated business models, distribution costs, intellectual property laws, the meatspace daily commute of knowledge workers, snail mail, the telephone monopoly, and repressive governance. and, it slays ignorance. now, yes, on that last it has enabled the spread of a great deal of ignorant bull, but on balance the knowledge it spreads outweighs that. worship no other gods before the internet! covet not the old days, they weren't good, they sucked! the only thing good about the days of my youth was that the minimum wage was a living wage. the lack of a living minimum wage is the cause of most of this country's problems; crime, homelessness, the housing crisis... back then, a loving parent raised the children. now that the government has legalized wage theft, kids are raised by corporate child care. it's no wonder to me why there's so much youth mental illness and youth violence. i grew up with the pc and internet. i remember a time where the internet was not everywhere (or anywhere really), i remember a time where a cellphone was a novelty for the rich, and i remember a time where libraries were the information highway. the information highway can still run through the library and the library is still the best place to go for anyone who needs to research, find helpful resources, etc. especially those who have no clue. most libraries, especially academic libraries (university libraries) pay a lot of money for resources that the average person just wouldn't be able and/or want to afford. not to mention librarians are usually those geeks in school that liked books. i.e. smarter than the average bear and are usually very helpful. your average public librarian may or may not be with it, but their heart is usually in the right place. very interesting post. it seems to mirror what i've seen in my personal experience with small and large organizations. at some point the 'engine' that built the company's success is infiltrated by marketing, sales, and mid level mid wit mbas that are driven by somewhat arbitrary metrics. these people create a stratified bureaucracy that drives the organization away from engineering and customers and towards short term sales and marketing metrics. i attribute it to the fact that marketing, sales, and mid management are better at playing the office politics game and generally better at understanding people and getting what they want in interpersonal relationships. they are soon driving the direction of the company no matter who the ceo is or who is on the board. i've been having that trouble at work lately. we're not allowed to order popular products because we're over delivered. so rather than make the extra sales, we're just killing sales so the orders match the budget. it makes no sense other than trying to improve an arbitrary grade that management doesn't even understand. i can tell you this: it's a lot easier to invite someone into a management position than it is to get rid of one. just like aol ( subscriptions ) or renters/roommates. i've watched dozens of companies fail from poor management / office politics that completely de motivated the men who were the ones actually keeping the company running. i'll say it again: advertising destroys everything it ever touches [soylentnews.org] https://bobshea.net/empire_of_the_rising_scum.html [bobshea.net] executive summary: no matter what an organization is meant for, when the people whose superpower is getting promoted get in, they take it over and turn it into something that only benefits them. the premise that a company must be constantly growing to be successful is entirely bogus. according to the mbas the following scenario is a failure: you started a company in 1901 and grown to the point that you employed 5000 employees, and maintained good relations with your community and customers for 123 years, while making a consistent profit, year after year. you've made a profit in spite of depressions, recessions, inflation, deflation. year after year after year, you've met payroll, paid your taxes, and paid yourself and other investors a modest income. but, you're a failure, because you're not growing at 5, or 10, or 20% every year. like my hypothetical company, google used to be good. then they started listening to those damned mbas. grow, grow, grow, at all costs. that's so freaking stupid. how many animals in nature continue growing for as long as they live? not many, and none of them has to meet some growth quota. a catfish might continue growing all of it's life   unless it finds itself in a body of water that won't support continued growth. google and some other companies should take a hint from nature. the premise that a company must be constantly growing to be successful is entirely bogus that horse has bolted in the 70'ies, when the currency was floated. if the absolute level of wealth has suddenly lost its value, what do you replace it with? with the accumulation rate, of course, thus "wealth" nowadays is measured in "growth" units (simple, just switch the function value with its first derivative). according to the mbas stock market the following scenario is a failure ftfy. your definition of "not being a failure" is good for a family business. or for a coop, like the mondragon corp (ye know? the social democracy you're so quick to berate as ebil). yet, the same definition is death for a public company that seeks money on the stock market, competing with others that need capital and are showing a higher rate of growth. why do you hate capitalism? :large grin: according to the mbas stock market the following scenario is a failure ftfy. the "stock market" isn't some magical creature that lives and breathes on its own, it's the encapsulation of buying and selling stocks and securities, and its behavior is the result of decisions made by the people who agree on buy/sell prices. it's perfectly reasonable for gp to call out mbas, as they're well overrepresented in the group of decision makers. the "stock market" isn't some magical creature that lives and breathes on its own, it's the encapsulation of buying and selling stocks and securities, and its behavior is the result of decisions made by the people who agree on buy/sell prices. the majority of those people are stock traders, who are interested in having a slice of the ... you guessed it, growth.long gone are the times when the majority of stock owners where mainly interested in the dividend. that's only because companies are allowed to artificially raise their share prices by buying shares back or buying up their competitors. they could just as easily just issue dividends for whatever money was left over after expenses and company investments are made. a company can issue small dividends indefinitely without needing to grow much. they could just as easily just issue dividends for whatever money was left over after expenses and company investments are made. that's what the investors ask for, growth. and they will reward the ones that deliver. to the point in which the publicly traded companies that prefer steady are weaker financially and fall prey to the so rewarded competition. if you have your retirement in a pension fund (which is the wise thing to do), you yourself are asking for growth. because otherwise the currency floating (and the switch to growth as the societal value) will eat away your static retirement savings and you will 100% need to run just to stay in place and keep working, until you die.mind you, even if you "ask for growth", there's no warranty your pension will be enough for your (economically) inactive phase of your life after retirement, but its guaranteed that if you don't ask for growth, you will die a destitute. without growth, you can't have the fast technological progress and improvement in the quality of life that we saw in the last 100 150 years. but, you know, tanstaafl. very likely, we (as the humanity) will need to learn the ways of sustainable growth, but we can't refuse growth. which should happen just by keeping up with inflation. no need to do anything crazy as prices go up with inflation as does the price of other things and as long as your customers can keep paying for it, you're not in any danger from that. which should happen just by keeping up with inflation. and exactly how do you propose to make this happen?like, who establishes what's the optimum level of inflation (thus how much money are fiat into existence) and who enforces the "no growth greater than the inflation rate" rule? the "stock market" isn't some magical creature that lives and breathes on its own, it's the encapsulation of buying and selling stocks and securities, but the market is composed of millions of investors, and if the ceo doesn't pursue maximum growth then the board of directors will replace the ceo. and if the board of directors doesn't pursue maximum growth then the shareholders will replace the board of directors. and you might convince 1 investor, or 10, or 10,000 not to do that. but you can't talk the whole market into sanity. google, microsoft, apple, facebook, amazon, etc... and all of the evil crap they're doing aren't doing it because of a handful of assholes in key positions. their evil is a symptom, the whole fucking market is the disease. trying to grasp the numbers, i imagined the company had a headcount of 5000 in 1944 (wartime production) and then continued for 80 years to grow at the middle percentage you gave, they'd have 10 million employees by now. which would be five times the largest company today (walmart) has. to find that out, i'd had to find a list of the largest companies by headcount. ( https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest companies by number of employees/, [companiesmarketcap.com] or https://www.statista.com/statistics/264671/top 50 companies based on number of employees/ [statista.com] ) which in itself is interesting enough, with surprises and mysteries. foxconn has become the largest manufacturer worldwide, byd is already as big as the entire volkswagen group. accenture is massive. concentrix have 440k in one list, don't exist in the other, and it's a bit mystery to find out of what goes on there. they seem to keep the internet clean about what they actually do (there are other names in the corporate mesh, like convergys or td synnex). but, going by their open job positions, they seem to be the biggest driver of enshittification experienced ("digital customer experience") by the average person, mostly being call center scum. the author points out that when the apparatchiks take over, the organization's goal, just like a tumor, becomes to grow without limit like a cancer. not for any purpose, but to give larger empires to the rising scum. that company that has survived 100 years is not failure, but a success. the problem is that such companies are rare. most of them are sallowed by big corporations, those small companies that managed to become 500lb gorillas.that's the tragedy, having a sword doesn't makes you a better farmer, but allows you to live better than the farmer whom you are stealing food remember when you could use and and or in your search? remember when you could use ' ' to exclude terms, and '+' to force a term to be in the results? remember when what you were searching for was one of the first couple results returned? those all went away long before 2019. and they did all this before hoovering up your personal information. i've been using ddg for 10 years or so now, it fails and i have to google something maybe once a month. yes, and i wish someone would start a new search engine that incorporated them. ten million search results are worthless if the first ten screens worth don't have what you're looking for. good luck finding anything on mcgrew.info with google. i already had hints for it a while ago, but then the posting tim bray: ‘mourning google’ [daringfireball.net] from john gruber pushed me in trying it. also their blog posting the age of pagerank is over [manifesto] [kagi.com] helped. right out of the results you can up/down rank (or hide) the sites from the results. also the "quick answer" is useful, which creates a summary of the first few results (e.g. for content from stackoverflow, stackexchange and similar sites). so you may even not have to check the sites of the top results to get what you where looking for. there are some other nice features, like results with customizable rewritten links (aka redirects [kagi.com]). what i also like about kagi is their open communication, like a public changelog [kagi.com] with links for each ticket out of kagi feedback [kagifeedback.org] and their status [kagi.com]. i'm pretty sure you won't have a good search on the internet without running your own crawler. you can create a local dns cache while you're at it. you can try running your own search engine: https://yacy.net/ [yacy.net] is such a distributed search engine. you run your own "node" that has a crawler and an interface to the entire crawled database. you contribute bandwidth to build the database and in return you get to search the db. yandex.com supports exclusion with a " " on the trailing terms of your search. i don't know if it supports boolean operations as google used to, but it is better than nothing (and truth be told, the exclusion operator is what i use most to drill down through search results). that is one of the reasons why it is my default search engine (only bugbear with it is that every once in a while it asks me to prove i am not a bot with a captcha). the search engine space is pretty poor, almost everything is basically either google or bing re branded. <no sarcasm>remember when you could google for a local restaurant and get useful information? the menu. the prices. now, you get only links to third party interlopers who want to take your money to go place your order and deliver it to you. that would be fine if that was what i was searching for. but now google makes it nearly impossible to find information on a local restaurant.</no sarcasm>
in one 2019 email, a google executive, jerry dischler, wrote to a colleague that the company was at risk of missing its revenue targets. a pdf version of this document with embedded text is available at the link below: from: to: sent: subject: jerry dischler redacted@google.com> anil sabharwal redacted@google.com> fri, 3 may 2019 09:05:53  0700 re: important sqv update cc: prabhakar raghavan redacted@google.com>, nick fox redacted@google.com>, benedict gomes redacted@google.com>, john maletis redacted@google.com>, hiroshi lockheimer redacted@google.com> thanks anil for pushing your team and for being open to this whole line of thinking. is there any chance we can converge on this more quickly? to elaborate: redacted redacted redacted just looking at this very tactically, and sorry to go into this level of detail, but based on where we are i'm afraid it's warranted. we are short queries and are ahead on ads launches so are short % revenue vs. plan. if we don't hit plan, our sales team doesn't get its quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street's expectations again, which is not what ruth signaled to the street so we get punished pretty badly in the market. we are shaking the cushions on launches and have some candidates in may that will help, but if these break in mid late may we only get half a quarter of impact or less, which means we need % + excess to where we are today and can't do it alone. the search team is working together with us to accelerate a launch out of a new mobile layout by the end of may that will be very revenue positive (exact numbers still moving), but that still won't be enough. our best shot at making the quarter is if we get an injection of at least %, ideally ¹%, queries asap from chrome. some folks on our side are running a more detailed, finance blessed, what if analysis on this and should be done with that in a couple of days, but i expect that these will be the rough numbers. redacted the question we are all faced with is how badly do we want to hit our numbers this quarter? we need to make this choice asap. i care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another redacted in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team. i'm super proud of our pure approach at google and don't want to poison the culture of any team, and this is why i haven't pushed harder. i also don't want the message to be "we're doing this thing because the ads team needs revenue." that's a very negative message. but my question to all of you is   based on above   what do we think is the best decision for google overall?