I think the argument is that if:

> All this time, Google falsely told the United States that Google had “put a legal hold in place” that “suspends auto-deletion.”

...then you better not be auto-deleting things for the next 3 years.

The lawsuit details that the language Google used when telling the DOJ what they were protecting. Hangouts is included in that language.

Google also revised their retention policies for chats not once, but _twice_ during the litigation, but somehow no-one thought that maybe deleting the chats should be mentioned to the US government.