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.

2008年底，谷歌因与其竞争对手雅虎的一项广告交易面临反垄断审查，并面临涉及专利、商标和版权索赔的诉讼，当时谷歌的高管发出了一份机密备忘录。

“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.

“我们相信信息是好的，”高管们在备忘录中告诉员工。但是，他们还说，政府监管机构或竞争对手可能会抓住谷歌员工之间随意、漫不经心写下的话语不放。

To minimize 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 one another about “hot topics.” “Don’t comment before you have all the facts,” they were instructed.

谷歌表示，为了最大限度地减少因诉讼而暴露出的可能入罪的言论，员工之间应该避免猜测和讽刺性的语言，在相互写信讨论“热门话题”之前“三思而后行”。他们被要求：“在掌握全部事实之前，不要发表评论。”

The technology was tweaked, too. The setting for the company’s instant messaging tool was changed to “off the record.” An incautious phrase would be wiped the next day.

技术也进行了调整。该公司的即时通讯工具设置改为“不记录”。一句不谨慎的话第二天就会被删除。

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.

这份备忘录成为谷歌15年来将删除作为内部通信默认设置的开端。尽管这家互联网巨头存储着全世界的信息，但它创造了一种尽量减少自身信息的办公室文化。它的手段包括：将法律保密特权作为万能盾牌，对自己的技术施加限制，同时不断警告员工，即使是最成功的公司也会因口风不紧而陷入困境。

How Google developed this distrustful culture was pieced together from hundreds of documents and exhibits, as well as witness testimony, in three antitrust trials against the Silicon Valley company over the last year. The plaintiffs — Epic Games in one case, the Department of Justice in the other two — were trying to establish monopoly behavior, which required them to look through emails, memos and instant messages from hundreds of Google engineers and executives.

根据去年针对这家硅谷公司的三起反垄断案件中的数百份文件、证物以及证人证词，我们拼凑出谷歌是如何形成这种不信任文化的。原告——一案是Epic游戏，另两案是司法部——试图确立垄断行为，这需要他们查看数百名谷歌工程师和高管的电子邮件、备忘录和即时消息。

The exhibits and testimony showed that Google took numerous steps to keep a lid on internal communications. It encouraged employees to put “attorney-client privileged” on documents and to always add a Google lawyer to the list of recipients, even if no legal questions were involved and the lawyer never responded.

证物和证词显示，谷歌采取了许多措施对内部通讯保密。它鼓励员工让文件具备“律师–当事人保密”属性，任何时候收件人列表中都要有一名谷歌律师，即使这些文件不涉及法律问题，而律师也从不会回复。

去年11月，谷歌首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊（中）抵达旧金山一家联邦法院，出席一宗反垄断案的审判。

Companies anticipating litigation are required to preserve documents. But Google exempted instant messaging from automatic legal holds. If workers were involved in a lawsuit, it was up to them to turn their chat history on. From the evidence in the trials, few did.

面临诉讼的公司按规定需要保存文件。但谷歌将即时通讯排除在了自动法律保留之外。如果员工卷入了诉讼，他们可以自行决定是否打开自己的聊天记录功能。从审判证据来看，很少有人这样做。

Google is far from the only company trying to keep newer forms of communication out of the courtroom. As instant messages and text messages have become popular office tools, corporations and regulators have increasingly clashed over how the missives can be used in court.

谷歌并不是唯一一家试图将更新型的通讯方式排除在法庭之外的公司。随着即时通讯和短信成为流行的办公工具，关于如何在法庭上使用这些信息，企业和监管机构发生了越来越多的冲突。

A generation ago, a water-cooler conversation or a phone call might have been incriminating, but the words would have dissolved in the air. Someone might remember them, but they could always be denied. Perhaps listeners misheard or misunderstood.

在一代人以前，饮水机旁的一次谈话或一通电话可能会造成指控，但这些话都会在空气中消失。有人可能记得，但他们总是可以否认。也许是听者听错了，或是误解了。

Companies would like instant messages to be as ephemeral as a real-life conversation. A comment made by text to a subordinate about the implications of a merger is just so much chatter, they argue. But regulators, and litigants, see them as fair game.

公司希望即时消息像现实生活中的对话一样转瞬即逝。他们认为，给下属发一条关于某宗并购案的影响的短信，不过是闲聊而已。但监管机构和诉讼当事人认为这些是合理的目标。

In August, the Federal Trade Commission, which is suing to stop a $25 billion supermarket merger between Albertsons and Kroger, said several Albertsons executives had demonstrated “a pervasive practice” of deleting business-related text messages in defiance of legal requirements to keep them.

今年8月，联邦贸易委员会表示，几名艾伯森公司的高管无视保留与商业有关的短信的法律要求，把删除这些短信当做“普遍做法”。该委员会正在提起诉讼，要求阻止艾伯森和克罗格之间价值250亿美元的超市合并。

Some of these texts, the F.T.C. argued, suggested that at least one executive thought prices might increase as a result of the merger. The judge said Albertsons “failed to take reasonable steps” to preserve the messages, but did not punish the chain. Albertsons declined to comment.

联邦贸易委员会认为，其中一些短信表明，至少有一名高管认为合并可能会导致价格上涨。法官表示，艾伯森公司“未能采取合理措施”来保存这些信息，但没有惩罚这家超市连锁。艾伯森拒绝置评。

In April, the F.T.C. said in a legal filing as part of its antitrust case against Amazon that company executives had used the disappearing message tool Signal to discuss competition issues, even after they were required to keep all communications in the case. Amazon said the assertions that it had destroyed information were “baseless and irresponsible.”

今年4月，联邦贸易委员会在一份法律文件中表示，在针对亚马逊的反垄断案中，该公司高管曾使用阅后即焚工具Signal讨论竞争问题，尽管他们被要求保留案件中的所有通信。亚马逊表示，关于该公司销毁信息的说法是“毫无根据和不负责任的”。

梅里克·B·加兰（上图）领导的司法部对谷歌发起了两宗反垄断诉讼。

But Google has faced the broadest criticism for its actions, with the judges in all three antitrust cases chastising the company for its communications practices.

但谷歌的行为受到了最广泛的批评，在所有三起反垄断案件中，法官都对该公司的通讯行为进行了严厉批评。

Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, who presided over the Epic case, said that there was “an ingrained systemic culture of suppression of relevant evidence within Google” and that the company’s behavior was “a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice.” He added that after the trial, he was “going to get to the bottom” of who was responsible at Google for allowing this behavior. Judge Donato declined to comment.

美国加州北区地方法院法官詹姆斯·多纳托是Epic一案的主审法官，他说，“谷歌内部有一种根深蒂固的压制相关证据的系统性文化，”该公司的行为是“对公平司法的正面攻击”。他还说，审判结束后，他将“彻查”谁应该为谷歌允许这种行为负责。多纳托法官拒绝置评。

Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is overseeing Google’s antitrust case involving advertising technology, said at a hearing in August that the company’s document retention policies were “not the way in which a responsible corporate entity should function.” She added, “An awful lot of evidence has likely been destroyed.”

美国弗吉尼亚州东区地方法院法官莱昂尼·布林克马负责监管谷歌涉及广告技术的反垄断案，她在8月份的一次听证会上表示，该公司的文件保留政策“不是一个负责任的企业实体应该采取的方式”。她补充说，“大量证据可能已经被销毁。”

The Justice Department has asked Judge Brinkema for sanctions, which would be a presumption that the missing material was unfavorable to Google on the issues it is on trial for, including monopoly power and whether its conduct was anticompetitive. Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Monday.

司法部已要求布林克马法官实施制裁，这将假定缺失的材料在谷歌受审的案件中对谷歌不利，包括垄断权力及谷歌的行为是否反竞争。该案的结案辩论定于周一进行。

In a statement, Google said it took “seriously our obligations to preserve and produce relevant documents. We have for years responded to inquiries and litigation, and we educate our employees about legal privilege.”

谷歌在一份声明中表示，它“认真履行了保存和提供相关文件的义务。多年来，我们一直在回应询问和诉讼，并对员工进行法律特权教育。”

From Google’s point of view, it was the Marie Kondo of corporations, merely tidying up its records and files. But it did this so comprehensively and obsessively that it created the illusion of deceit that it was trying so hard to dispel, said Agnieszka McPeak, a professor at Gonzaga University School of Law who has written about evidence destruction.

从谷歌的角度来看，它相当于公司中的断舍离实践者，只是清理记录和文件而已。冈萨加大学法学院教授阿格涅斯卡·麦克皮克曾写过关于销毁证据的文章，她说，但是谷歌的做法太过彻底、太过执着，以至于制造了一种它在欺瞒的假象，谷歌一直在致力于消除这种印象。

“Google had a top-down corporate policy of ‘Don’t save anything that could possibly make us look bad,’” she said. “And that makes Google look bad. If they’ve got nothing to hide, people think, why are they acting like they do?”

“谷歌有一个自上而下的公司政策，那就是‘不要保存任何可能让我们难堪的东西’，”她说。“而这让谷歌看起来很糟糕。如果他们没有什么好隐瞒的，人们就会想，他们为什么要表现得好像在隐瞒什么呢？”

Microsoft’s Long Shadow

微软的巨大阴影

Google was founded in September 1998, a few months after the era’s most dominant tech company — Microsoft — was sued by the Justice Department for antitrust violations. Seeking to show that Microsoft was illegally monopolizing the web browser market, the department did not have to look far for damning memos.

谷歌成立于1998年9月，就在几个月前，当时最具统治力的科技公司微软被美国司法部提起反垄断诉讼。司法部不费吹灰之力就找到了一些具有破坏性的备忘录，可以用来证明微软非法垄断网络浏览器市场。

“We need to continue our jihad next year,” a company vice president wrote to Microsoft’s chief executive, Bill Gates, in one memo. Another executive, trying to persuade Apple to kill a feature, said, “We want you to knife the baby.”

1993年，一位公司副总裁在给微软首席执行官比尔·盖茨的一份备忘录中写道：“明年我们需要继续我们的圣战。”另一位高管试图说服苹果取消一项功能，他说：“我们希望你把宝宝扼杀在摇篮里。”

Microsoft lost the case, though the verdict was partly overturned on appeal. Still, it was enough of a near-death experience to make the next generation of tech companies, including Google, wary of both documents and loose comments.

微软败诉了，尽管在上诉后部分判决被推翻。不过，这种险些全盘皆输的经历，足以让包括谷歌在内的下一代科技公司对文件和不严谨的言论保持警惕。

The trouble was, technology made it so very easy to produce and preserve an abundance of both. Google produced 13 times as many emails as the average company per employee did before it was a decade old, Kent Walker, Google’s top lawyer, testified in the Epic trial. Google felt overwhelmed, he said, and it was clear to the company that things would only become worse if changes weren’t made.

问题在于，科技的进步使得生产和保存大量信息变得极为简单。谷歌首席律师肯特·沃克在Epic一案的庭审中作证称，在成立不到十年的时间里，谷歌每名员工产生的电子邮件数量是普通公司的13倍。他说，谷歌感到不知所措，显然，如果不做出改变，情况只会变得更糟。

The 2008 memo that said chat messages would be automatically purged was signed by Mr. Walker and Bill Coughran, an engineering executive. They noted that Google had “an email and instant messaging culture.” Its instant messaging tools, first called Talk, later Hangouts and then Chat, were quickly taken up by employees.

2008年的备忘录中称，聊天信息将自动删除，该备忘录由沃克和工程高管比尔·考夫兰签署。他们指出，谷歌拥有“电子邮件和即时通讯文化”。其即时通讯工具最初称为Talk，后来是Hangouts，然后是Chat，该工具迅速被员工采用。

Chat was where engineers could go a little wild, safely. As one Googler wrote in a chat that surfaced as a courtroom exhibit, the need to be cautious “makes for less interesting, sometimes even less useful written communication. But that’s why we have off-the-record chats.”

在Chat上，工程师们可以放心，不用那么拘谨。正如一名谷歌员工在法庭展示的聊天记录中所写，谨慎的需求“使得书面交流变得不是那么有趣，有时甚至不那么有用。但这就是我们为什么需要不公开聊天的原因”。

比尔·盖茨领导的微软在上世纪90年代末被司法部发起反垄断诉讼。

Google, like many corporations, deals with so many lawsuits that some employees are subject to multiple litigation holds at the same time. A few may be on litigation holds for their entire career.

与许多企业一样，谷歌要处理许多诉讼，以至于一些员工在同一时间面临多起诉讼。其中一些人可能在整个职业生涯中都处于诉讼保留状态。

Lauren Moskowitz, an Epic lawyer, asked Mr. Walker during his testimony in the case how putting employees in control of the process actually worked.

Epic一案的律师劳伦·莫斯科维茨在沃克出庭作证时问他，究竟要如何让员工处理这一过程。

“You expected your employees, hundreds, thousands of employees, to stop what they were doing for every instant message that they ever sent or received every day, and parse through a list of topics on some legal hold, to decide whether they should take an action to change a default setting in their Chat before conducting the rest of their business,” Ms. Moskowitz said.

“你期望你的员工，成百上千的员工，每天在发送或接收每条即时消息时，停下手头的工作，逐一比对法律保留主题列表，以决定是否应该更改Chat的默认设置，再进行其他业务，”莫斯科维茨说道。

Mr. Walker responded that the policy had been “reasonable at the time.”

沃克回应说，这项政策“在当时是合理的”。

As Google became bigger, its vocabulary became smaller. In a memo from 2011 titled “Antitrust Basics for Search Team,” the company recommended avoiding “metaphors involving wars or sports, winning or losing,” and rejecting references to “markets,” “market share” or “dominance.”

随着谷歌变得越来越大，公司的用词规范却越收越紧。在2011年一份名为《搜索团队的反垄断基本知识》的备忘录中，公司建议避免使用“涉及战争或体育、胜利或失败的隐喻”，并不要提及“市场”、“市场份额”或“主导地位”。

In a subsequent tutorial for new employees, Google said even a phrase as benign as “putting products in the hands of new customers” should be avoided because it “can be interpreted as expressing an intent to deny consumers choice.”

在随后针对新员工的培训中，谷歌表示，即使是“将产品交到新客户手中”这样看似无害的短语也应避免，因为它“可能被解读为表达了拒绝消费者选择的意图”。

If using the right words and deleting messages did not keep Google out of the courthouse, the company concluded, invoking the lawyers would.

如果使用正确的词汇和删除信息还是无法让谷歌避免上法庭，公司的结论是，那么就要由律师出马了。

谷歌首席律师肯特·沃克9月出席参议院听证会。他在法庭上作证称，谷歌在成立不到十年的时间里，每名员工产生的电子邮件数量是普通公司的13倍。

In the Epic case, the plaintiff contended that Google’s many evocations of attorney-client privilege were merely for show, to keep the documents out of the courtroom. Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, wrote in one 2018 email to another executive, “Attorney Client Privileged, Confidential, Kent pls advice,” referring to Mr. Walker. The email, about a nonlegal issue, was withheld by Google and stripped of its privilege only after Epic challenged it.

在Epic一案中，原告辩称，谷歌多次援引法律与当事人保密特权只是在作秀，目的是为了阻止法庭公开文件。谷歌首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊在2018年给另一位高管的一封电子邮件中写道，“律师当事人特权，保密，肯特请提供建议”，他指的是沃克。这封关于一个并非法律问题的电子邮件被谷歌按下不予公开，在Epic对其提出质疑后，它的保密特权才取消。

Mr. Walker was asked to explain Google’s behavior to the judge. He denied that there was “a culture of concealment” but said one problem was Googlers unsure of the meaning of certain words.

法官要求沃克对谷歌的行为作出解释。他否认存在“隐瞒文化”，但表示，谷歌员工对某些词汇的含义不确定，这是一个问题。

“They think of the word ‘privilege’ as similar to ‘confidential,’” he said.

“他们认为‘保密权’这个词与‘机密’是差不多的意思，”他说。

A message surfaced in the Epic trial in which a Google lawyer identified the practice of copying lawyers on documents as “fake privilege” and seemed rather amused by it. Mr. Walker said he was “disappointed” and “surprised” to hear that term.

在Epic诉讼中公开了一条信息，一名谷歌律师将文件抄送律师的做法视为“假保密权”，并对此似乎感到颇为好笑。沃克表示，听到这个词，他感到“失望”和“惊讶”。

The jury hearing the case ruled in favor of Epic on all 11 counts in December.

去年12月，审理此案的陪审团在全部11项指控中裁定Epic胜诉。

Mr. Pichai and Mr. Walker declined to comment. Last month, three advocacy groups, led by the American Economic Liberties Project, asked for Mr. Walker to be investigated by the California State Bar for coaching Google to “engage in widespread and illegal destruction” of documents relevant to federal trials.

皮查伊和沃克拒绝置评。上个月，由美国经济自由项目牵头的三个倡导团体要求加州律师协会对沃克展开调查，理由是他指使谷歌“大范围非法销毁”与联邦审判有关的文件。

‘What Happens in Vegas’

“在赌城发生的事”

In September 2023, as Google went on trial in an antitrust case over its dominance in internet search, the Justice Department asserted that the company had withheld tens of thousands of documents, saying they were privileged. When the documents were reviewed by the court, they were deemed not privileged after all.

2023年9月，谷歌因其在互联网搜索中的主导地位而面临反垄断审判，司法部声称该公司隐瞒了数万份文件，称这些文件享有保密权。法庭对文件进行审查后，最终认定并非如此。

“The court is taken aback by the lengths to which Google goes to avoid creating a paper trail for regulators and litigants,” Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote. Google, he noted, had clearly learned Microsoft’s lesson: It had effectively trained its employees not to create “bad” evidence.

美国哥伦比亚特区地区法院的阿米特·P·梅塔法官写道，“谷歌为避免给监管机构和诉讼当事人留下书面记录煞费苦心，令本庭感到吃惊。”他指出，谷歌显然吸取了微软的教训：它对员工进行了有效的培训，让他们不要创造出“不好的”证据。

Judge Mehta said it ultimately did not matter: In August, he found Google guilty of being a monopoly. Still, he said, he did not think the company was behaving well.

梅塔表示，这最终无关紧要：在今年8月，他裁定谷歌垄断成立。尽管如此，他还是表示这家公司的所作所为是不可取的。

“Any company that puts the onus on its employees to identify and preserve relevant evidence does so at its own peril,” he wrote, adding that Google might not be so lucky to avoid sanctions in the next case.

“任何将识别和保存相关证据的责任推给员工的公司，都是在自找麻烦，”他写道，他还说，谷歌在下一个案件中可能不会如此幸运地避免制裁。

The next case arrived in September, when the Justice Department argued in Judge Brinkema’s courtroom in Virginia that Google had built a monopoly in the highly profitable technology that served online ads.

下一起案件发生在9月份，当时司法部在弗吉尼亚州布林克马法官的法庭上指出，谷歌在提供在线广告的高利润技术领域建立了垄断地位。

Exhibits in the cases showed that Googlers had learned to be a little paranoid for the good of Google and their own careers. Talk in the dark, they insisted over and over, rather than in the light.

这些案件中的证据表明，为了谷歌和他们自己的职业生涯，谷歌的员工已经学会了一种如临大敌的态度。他们一再坚持在暗处交流，而不是在明面上。

“How do we turn History off?” Adam Juda, a vice president for product management, wrote in a 2020 chat. “I don’t do History on .”

“咱们怎么关掉历史记录？”产品管理副总裁亚当·朱达在2020年的一次聊天中写道。“我不保留历史记录。” 

Sometimes executives were so worried about leaving a record that they defaulted to obsolete technology.

有时，管理层非常担心留下记录，以至于默认使用过时的技术。

9月，谷歌在弗吉尼亚州一家法院受审，以裁定该公司是否在提供在线广告的高利润技术领域建立了垄断地位。

In 2017, Robert Kyncl, then the chief business officer at the Google subsidiary YouTube, asked his boss, Susan Wojcicki, if she had a fax machine at home. Mr. Kyncl explained he had a “privileged doc” and “just didn’t want to send email.” Ms. Wojcicki, who died in August, did not have a fax machine.

在2017年，时任谷歌子公司YouTube首席商务官的罗伯特·金克尔问老板苏珊·沃西基，她家里是否有传真机。金克尔解释说，他有一份“保密权文件”，而且“只是不想用电子邮件发”。沃西基已于8月去世，她并没有传真机。

If employees wanted to keep an electronic record, they were rebuked. In a group chat from 2021, one employee inquired: “ok for me to keep history on here? need to keep some info for memory purposes.”

想要保留电子记录的员工会受到责备。在2021年的一次群聊中，一名员工询问：“可以保留这里的历史记录吗？需要保留一些信息以免忘了”。

Not OK, said Danielle Romain, the vice president of Trust, a Google team that looks for solutions that enhance user privacy and trust. “The discussion that started this thread gets into legal and potentially competitive territory, which I’d like to be conscientious of having under privilege,” she said. “I’d like to stick to the default of history off.”

Trust的副总裁丹妮尔·罗曼说，不可以。Trust团队致力于寻找增强用户隐私和信任的解决方案。“引发这一连串的讨论涉及法律和潜在的竞争领域，我希望在享有保密特权的情况下进行讨论，”她说。“我希望默认设置为关闭历史记录。”

Julia Tarver Wood, a Justice Department lawyer, said at an August hearing in the ad-tech case that Google employees “referred to these off-the-record chats as ‘Vegas.’ What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

美国司法部律师朱莉娅·塔弗·伍德在8月份的一次广告技术案听证会上说，谷歌员工将这些私下聊天称为“赌城”，这是用了那句名言的典故：在赌城发生的事情就留在赌城吧。

Google maintained that it did its best to provide the government with the documents it could, and that, in any case, the Justice Department did not establish that the deleted conversations were crucial to its case. The Justice Department said it could not do that because the material had been deleted.

谷歌坚持认为该公司尽力向政府提供了能够提供的文件，并且无论如何，司法部并未证明被删除的对话对案件至关重要。司法部表示，由于内容已被删除，是无法做到这一点的。

Regulators have recently underlined that there is no “Vegas” in chats. This year, the F.T.C. and the Justice Department’s antitrust division made it “crystal clear” in an enforcement memo: Communications through messaging apps are documents and must be preserved if there is threat of litigation.

监管机构最近强调，聊天中不存在所谓的“赌城”。今年，联邦贸易委员会和司法部的反垄断部门在一份执法备忘录中“明确”表示：通过消息应用程序的通信属于文件，如果存在诉讼威胁，则必须保留。

Last year, Google changed its procedures. The default became saving everything, including chats. Employees on litigation holds can no longer turn chat history off.

去年，谷歌改变了它的程序。默认设置为保存所有内容，包括聊天内容。处于诉讼保留状态的员工无法再关闭聊天记录。

Old habits die hard, however. In one chat, employees responded to the news by forming a group to secretly communicate on WhatsApp, Meta’s secure messaging app.

然而，积习难改。在一次聊天中，员工们对这一消息的回应是在Meta的安全通讯应用WhatsApp上建群秘密沟通。