Google Says It Still Lacks 'Basic Information' About DOJ's Claims for Damages

Court for Eastern Virginia in Alexandria in support of its motion to compel responses to discovery requests in the DOJ’s antitrust suit against the firm. Just because DOJ’s expert will later provide a report doesn’t excuse its failure to provide damages and answer interrorgatories in ways that comply with rules, said Google, saying it’s “entitled to information responsive to our discovery requests now.” DOJ has the information, Google said, saying that DOJ told the court and Google it needed “invoice data” from Google because it “would validate and confirm purchase information collected from dozens of different sources, including FAAs and their advertising agency contractors, in a multitude of different forms, including scanned documents.” Google’s motion to compel, filed on the last day of the fact discovery period, “seeks to compel further responses to a grab bag of requests” exceeding the duration of discovery in the case, said DOJ’s response (docket 1:23-cv-00108) to Google’s motions to compel responses to various discovery requestion Wednesday. The court should deny Google’s motion to compel responses in the digital advertising antitrust case should be denied, DOJ said. The company “made little attempt to confer” with DOJ to resolve its concerns before filing the motion, it said. Google raised several alleged deficiencies “that have since been addressed,” said the response; on the rest of its arguments, Google “misstates the applicable standards and case law,” and “seeks to apply standards” to DOJ “which it has not met itself," it said. In May, DOJ said in a reply it had been unable to secure Google’s agreement to produce relevant documents from successor custodians or critical source code documents underlying key allegations in DOJ’s amended complaint (see 2306020038). Google seeks to compel discovery responses without adequately meeting and conferring, in contravention of local civil rule 37(E), said DOJ's response. Though Google said it made a “good faith effort” to narrow the dispute before filing the motion, it provides “scant evidence” of attempts to resolve issues raised in its motion, said DOJ. The defendant seeks relief on discovery responses “which were not even due, and which Google had not even seen” when it filed its motion, or on requests the parties never discussed during a phone conference, it said. Noting the nature of the advertising tech industry, DOJ said much of the information required to prepare a final computation of damages belongs to Google or other third parties. DOJ has tried to obtain that information, but Google has, in many instances, refused to provide relevant information saying it’s unduly burdensome or inconsistent with how Google stores financial records, it said. With discovery drawing to a close, minus the “millions of documents Google failed to produce” in violation of court orders, DOJ is working to prepare reports detailing the damages it has suffered, it said.