Amazon.com is the latest to face possible sanctions over allegations it improperly withheld tens of thousands of business records—including some unflattering to founder Jeff Bezos—in defending against an action by the Federal Trade Commission. At Google, a federal judge in San Francisco has ruled the company didn’t properly save evidence in a case brought by Epic Games, and its behavior has become a yoke as the Justice Department seeks to break up the search giant after winning two landmark antitrust cases. A different federal judge recently referred the behavior of Apple to the Justice Department, in part because of alleged efforts to hide documents from legal scrutiny…

Each company is accused of being overly aggressive in holding back internal documents under special legal standing—known as privilege—that should have, in fact, been turned over to the government or lawyers…Maybe it isn’t surprising the companies can’t help themselves in pushing the limits. It is, after all, what has made them so successful as disrupters turned conquerors. In their minds, they are the underdogs, whether they are facing the rise of AI, China or the next Big Thing lurking beyond the horizon. 

Excerpt from Tim Higgins, What Is Big Tech Trying to Hide?, WSJ, May 17, 2025