On November 7, 2022, plaintiffs filed a noticed motion asking the Court to compel Google to produce certain documents by November 18, 2022. Dkt. No. 353. On the same day, plaintiffs filed an administrative motion asking “that the Court shorten the time for ruling on” plaintiffs’ motion to compel. Dkt. No. 354. Google opposes the administrative motion. Dkt. No. 356.

Both of plaintiffs’ motions—the motion to compel and the administrative motion—rely on the same arguments: on September 6, 2022, the Court ordered Google to produce certain documents (Dkt. No. 326); nine weeks have passed and Google still has not produced all of the documents; and plaintiffs need these documents to prepare their class certification motion which is due to be filed January 24, 2023. Specifically, plaintiffs say that Google has not completed production of three categories of documents: (1) documents sufficient to show the revenue Google receives on an annual basis from RTB auctions in the United States; (2) documents sufficient to show any costs Google contends should be offset from revenues to calculate unjust enrichment; and (3) all reports, analyses, and studies showing the impact on Google’s RTB revenues of disabling third-party cookies and other user identifiers. See Dkt. No. 353 at 3-4; Dkt. No. 354 at 1-2; see also Dkt. No. 326 at 4-6. Google opposes plaintiffs’ administrative motion on several grounds,[1] including that its filing violates the Court’s standing order regarding the resolution of discovery disputes and Civil Local Rule 6-3. In addition, Google says it has been producing documents as ordered, has completed its production of annual revenue documents, and has produced other documents that the Court ordered produced. Dkt. No. 356 at 4-5. Google represents that it is “continuing to gather responsive documents and will make additional rolling productions later this month [i.e. November 2022].” Id. at 5.

The Court is mystified by plaintiffs’ approach to this dispute. Plaintiffs want the Court to set a hard deadline for Google’s production of documents the Court previously ordered produced, but instead of asking for that relief using the Court’s expedited discovery dispute resolution procedures, they filed a regularly noticed motion (i.e., one that requires 35-days’ notice for a hearing, and allows 14 days for opposition) and then a separate administrative motion asking the Court to hurry up and decide the noticed motion so that they can obtain an order requiring Google to make its production by November 18, 2022—11 days after plaintiffs filed their motion. While the Court is inclined to strike the noticed motion for failing to comply with the discovery dispute resolution procedures, such an order will simply lead to more paper about the same thing. As the parties have already briefed the merits of the dispute, the Court will just decide it now.

Google has had plenty of time to comply with the Court’s September 6, 2022 order. It must produce all documents the Court previously ordered it to produce in the three categories described above[2] by November 23, 2022. Plaintiffs are admonished regarding their noncompliance with the Court’s standing order.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Footnotes