Department of Labor sues Google for withholding data in anti-discrimination audit

Google has been sued by the Department of Labor for withholding data in an ongoing audit. In a complaint filed Jan 4, the Department says Google refused to provide compensation data as part of an anti-discrimination audit, and seeks a court order forcing the company to comply. The case stems from Google’s federal contracting business, which provides advertising and cloud computing services to a number of federal agencies. The lawsuit doesn’t allege that Google actually engaged in discrimination, only that it dragged its heels as the Department of Labor conducted the necessary audit. According to the complaint, officers launched the audit in September 2015, requesting a series of compensation snapshots drawn from current Google employees that could be compared over time. A few months later, Google replied with a letter declining to produce the some of the data. Google says it withheld that data for privacy reasons, but has produced hundreds of thousands of records over the course of the audit.