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Google Sued for $1B Over Outlook Migration Tool
A two-count lawsuit filed by Chicago company LimitNone alleges that Google misappropriated trade secrets and violated Illinois' consumer fraud laws when it developed "Google Email Uploader" which competes with LimitNone's "gMove" application.
"Google claims its core philosophy is 'Don't be evil' but, simply put, they invited us to work with them, to trust them — and then stole our technology,'" said Ray Glassman, CEO of LimitNone, in a prepared statement.
The lawsuit was filed by Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, the same commercial litigation group which challenged Google over the company's online advertising system.
What article? Business wire is a press release service. The "article" authors are listed at the bottom: Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, the lawyers who are suing google.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You really should have read the article. If what's said in the article is even partially true, it sure looks like Google acted in a pretty sleazy fashion. Apparently they were willing to boost this company's product until they realized how much money could be made from it, at which point they decided to build their own clone and give it away for free. It's like Netscape/IE all over again.
50 mil * $19 = $950 million
1. It's press release by the plaintiff's lawyers.
2. "until they realized how much money could be made from it, at which point they decided to build their own clone and give it away for free." WTF? That doesn't even make sense. We could make a fortune if we had this product, lets give it away for free and we'll all be rich!!! No. I'm not sure if Google cares _how_ the conversion is done, just that the users come to Google at some point in the transaction. A converter, while convenient if it's free, is just as valuable if somebody else sells it...as long as it it used.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
My blog
Offtopic, but that "old-lady vs McDonalds" lawsuit was actually valid, though it was taken by the tort-reform people and manipulated to seem like a silly lawsuit.
McDonalds had been warned several times by the FDA to lower the temperature of their coffee, as several people each year were severely burned by it. The woman was in the passenger seat, her son was driving, and they had pulled off to the side of the drive-thru so she could put sugar in the coffee. When opening the lid, the cup slipped and spilled on to her lap.
The woman suffered third degree burns over her thigh and groin area, totaling to be about 20% of her body, and second degree burns in her groin area.
She then contacted McDonalds, explaining the situation to them, and asked them to reimburse part of her medical bills (for burn treatment and skin grafts). They offered her $500. Since her bills were quickly climbing into the high tens of thousands of dollars, she sued for the cost of her medical expenses.
It was the jury that decided medical expenses were not enough, and awarded her punitive damages (to punish McDonalds) totaling one day's revenue in coffee sales. McDonalds appealed the decision, and an appellate judge overturned the punitive damages. She ended up getting somewhere around $200,000, which barely covered her medical expenses up to that point.
Sorry, that was very off topic, but that case is misused as an example for tort reform so often I felt it needed to be stated. There are other ridiculous cases, sure, but that really isn't one of them. More info here.
As you point out, Google's profit interest is in more migrations from Outlook. That means that anyone offering a Outloog migration tool is to Google's good. However, someone offering a converter for $$$ raises a barrier: some people won't pay for a converter; if they can't migrate for free they won't use Gmail. How do you overcome that barrier? Offer a converter for free. Yeah, the guys trying to sell their converter get shafted. But Google wins by getting more users who migrate off of Outlook.
That's the motivation point you seem to be neglecting. That's the ??? before "Profit!". In your words, that's WTF.
And yeah, I know, that's the story according to the plaintiff's legal team. We've unofficially heard one side of the story. (Yeah, unofficially. As you point out, it's a press release, not the actual filings.) So, there's obviously a lot more story to come. I hope Groklaw follows this one.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
CNET is also covering this at http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9976405-7.html
It provides additional details, including: "And in May 2008, Google changed its user interface, breaking gMove compatibility and forcing the company to provide customer refunds."
captcha: nonzero (that's almost like LimitNone)
going through the google blog search for "limitnone" i found this blog post. http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2007/11/past-present-and-future-of-email-with.html gMOVE or "MY GRATE" (horrible name) is just an implementation of the Google Email Migration API. Hence it's open for anyone to develop their own migration tools. I really doubt that the Plaintiff's complaint that Google could NOT implement their own perhaps superior product without the knowhow of limitnone's product is legitimate. As the poster tgd states it's really a "non-obvious" idea *wink wink. It sounds like a case of quasi-developers who are trying to squeeze out all the money it can from a middling products if you can call it that.
sig here
Actually she got a total of $640,000 including cost of punitive damages. Her award for compensatory damages were reduced because, she was found partially at fault.
Honestly though, many people only take their coffee piping hot. And if every Tom, Dick, and Harry sued because something was too sharp, too hot, too cold, too blunt, too fast, too powerful, where would we be now. I should sue VW because I got a ticket for going 100mph.
Bud.
Nip it in the bud.
Before it develops.
Like a flower.
Flowering plants have buds.
Bud.
Sorry, I got them mixed up, 20% second degree, some third degree. The coffee (by McDonalds' standards) was kept between 180-190 degrees F. They have since lowered the temperature.
You can, of course, look up the facts of the case and make sure I read them correctly, but third degree burns were cited as an injury.
In fact, during testimony, one of the Doctors brought in as an expert witness stated that at just ten degrees cool, the burns would have been very mild.
1 second exposure to 160 degree water = third degree burns:
http://www.tap-water-burn.com/
McDonald's coffee was 185 degrees:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
And the preface and conclusion of their code of conduct.
Details, details.