By David Streitfeld
In late 2008, as Google faced antitrust scrutiny over an advertising deal with its rival Yahoo and confronted lawsuits involving patent, trademark and copyright claims, its executives sent out a confidential memo.
“We believe that information is good,” the executives told employees in the memo. But, they added, government regulators or competitors might seize on words that Google workers casually, thoughtlessly wrote to one another.
To minimise the odds that a lawsuit could flush out comments that might be incriminating, Google said, employees should refrain from speculation and sarcasm and “think twice” before writing to one another about “hot topics”. “Don’t comment before you have all the facts,” they were instructed.
Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google systematically told employees to destroy messages, avoid certain words and copy in the lawyers as often …