rtment of Justice removes Google evidence that is key to its website

The US Department of Justice’s website has removed evidence that was crucial in the Google antitrust case.

The DOJ published key documents including Google’s memos, internal presentations, internal emails and charts as it presented its cases – without first informing Judge Amit Meshta.

According to Bloomberg, when the search engine complained, the judge was sympathetic. He ordered that DOJ remove important documents from public domain.

Why do we care? With the removal of access to crucial evidence, it will be much harder for the public and media to follow this landmark case that could influence the future Internet. This is a stark contrast to the Microsoft Corp. antitrust lawsuit in the 90s, which was widely watched.

What was Google’s opposition? John Schmidtlein, a Google lawyer, argued that the case did not require the sharing of all evidence. He said:

• Every document that they use as evidence is posted on their website and picked up by many people.
• This is not a business record and it’s completely irrelevant to this proceeding.”

What was the judge’s reasoning? The judge said he was surprised that the DOJ published evidence without informing him first. He said:

• “I wish I had been told that.”
• I think that a judge would be informed before the evidence is made public.

Kenneth Dintzer, the government attorney, quickly apologized for his actions and made sure that all previous exhibits published on DOJ’s website were immediately removed.

Deep dive. Our trial updates will keep you up to date with the latest developments of the Google antitrust case.

The article Department of Justice removes Google evidence from their website first appeared on Search Engine Land.