Colo. Nears End of Preliminary Google Data Requests

Colorado is nearly done requesting preliminary data from Google to understand surface-level information about the company’s data gathering practices, an attorney representing Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser told U.S. District Court in Washington during a status hearing (in Pacer) Friday in docket 1:20-cv-03010 (see 2102160052). Colorado expects to make “full-fledged” data requests by the end of September in its antitrust case against Google, Jonathan Sallet told Judge Amit Mehta. The preliminary data will help plaintiffs understand what data Google has, how it measures impact on consumers and what it sees about consumer behavior, said Sallet. Google attorney John Schmidtlein said the company is on track to deliver on this batch of requests, which involves hundreds of thousands of documents. The latest DOJ request is being converted and should be available next week, and the company expects to deliver documents to Colorado by the end of August, he said. DOJ Civil Division trial attorney Kenneth Dintzer said there are “looming” third-party issues to be resolved. Mehta told the attorneys the court will address those after August deposition proceedings.