How Google Spent 15 Years Creating a Culture of Concealment

November 20, 2024

Google Corporate Headquarters building with logo

(New York Times) – Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google systematically told employees to destroy messages, avoid certain words and copy the lawyers as often as possible.

The memo became the first salvo in a 15-year campaign by Google to make deletion the default in its internal communications. Even as the internet giant stored the world’s information, it created an office culture that tried to minimize its own. Among its tools: using legal privilege as an all-purpose shield and imposing restraints on its own technology, all while continually warning that loose lips could sink even the most successful corporation. (Read More)