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Obama’s Labor Department Sues Google Over Federal Compliance

REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

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Ted Goodman Contributor
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The Department of Labor (DOL) filed a lawsuit against Google for failing to provide data and documents about its employees at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., the DOL announced Wednesday.

The DOL asked the court to cancel all of Google’s current government contracts and block it from future contracts if it doesn’t comply, according to Investopedia.

The information requested in September 2015 was part of a scheduled compliance review of federal contracts. The DOL conducts the reviews in order to combat discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability or status as a veteran.

Under federal law, Google must agree to permit the federal government to inspect and copy records and information relevant to its compliance with equal employment laws.

“The lawsuit seeks to enforce Google’s obligations to provide [The Federal Government] with compensation data, documents and requested information to complete its audit,” DOL said in a statement. “Despite many opportunities to produce this information voluntarily, Google has refused to do so.”

Google responded to the lawsuit in a statement, calling the DOL’s requests “over-broad” and involving confidential information about employees.

“These requests include thousands of employees’ private contact information, which we safeguard rigorously,” Google said in a statement. “We hope to continue working with OFCCP [The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] to resolve this matter.” The tech giant said that it has provided DOL with “hundreds of thousands of records.”

Google only partially answered the questions, and refused to provide some relevant wage information requested by the agency, according to the lawsuit.

Google is the latest technology company to be the target of Obama’s Labor Department. The DOL sued Palantir, a data software startup co-founded by Peter Thiel, in September for allegedly discriminating against Asian job applicants.

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