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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.
If you can't get rich by making a worthy product, then get rich by suing someone. (No, I didn't read the article, but we all know this is the new way of business for most companies - sue their way to wealth.)
.... says that the majority of posts will be about which side is screwing who despite no one on Slashdot having any clue about what happened at the meetings between the two companies.
Check back later for the results of the prediction.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If even half of their claims are founded in truth then this is a worthy lawsuit and Google acted in an 'evil' manner. I'll clue you in on something: not all lawsuits are bad. The mechanism exists for a reason.
Then again at least you admitted that you are totally uninformed on the subject since you didn't read the (short) article.
I'd like to know how much R&D effort is needed to write an email migration tool.
I'm not a programmer... but It doesn't sound like something that would justify $1B in losses.
I find it rather ridiculous that LimitNone actually believes that an Email client migration product is such an advanced piece of software that Google with its legions of developers and mounds of cash couldn't cook one up on its own. The article cites that LimitNone claims that the 'gMove' application was a trade secret..it wasn't even patented. This is another huge whiner case. This company has a product that has a snowball's chance in hell of competing with a 'free' Google product, yet they still expect that they are somehow entitled to money for it because Google went back on its word (not contractually..just its "word").
I was sitting in on a product development meeting a few months back and the discussion came up on how to be viable in today's market. One of the big questions in online application entrepeneuring is: How can we remain viable against companies like Google?.. Companies like Google that can cook up the same product with all the same features in a fraction of the time. It seems that if LimitNone had applied some common sense to its product lines, it wouldn't run into the problem of oh, say, Google extending the functionality of one of its already existing applications. Whoops.
Trade secrets? What trade secrets? Google can't write a migration suite for its own email service? Geeze.
This is ust another case of litigation over innovation. I mean, I'm no IP law expert or anything, but a client migration tool? This could have easily have been some kind of open source project..who would LimitNone have sued then?
$1B is a ridiculous amount of money for this lawsuit, but even at $10M, a successful suit would bring more lawsuits out of the woodwork.
If it were only $10 million, Google would just take it out of their toilet paper and soft drink budget and forget about it and it would be business as usual: $10 million is nothing to a big monster mega-corp and it doesn't get any headlines like a BILLION DOLLAR award does. In other words, it only cost $10 million, shit! Let's do it again. Paying off a $10 million lawsuit is much cheaper than developing, marketing, researching it ourselves!
With a billion dollar penalty, it gets them thinking that maybe they shouldn't continue on this path.
So re-writing a little utility that someone is over-charging for ($29 for a one-time use tool that I don't really need?!), then giving it away for free is evil? Since when?
Stealing the look and feel, and functionality of the product is evil? So the gimp is evil too then, cause that arguably provides the same look, feel and functionality as photoshop...?
What about half the other FOSS that was made as an alternative to over-priced commercial software?
And do you honestly think that this company could have made a billion dollars in profits from this utility? I don't.
I DO think it was a bit sketchy that google worked along side them, or made them a "partner" and then reneged, but I don't think that warrants the amount of negative spin that this is getting.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
Suing someone else for your own stupid mistakes seems really... well, stupid. But I guess that's the name of the game these days.
As with everyone else here, I have no idea what actually went on in the meetings between Google and this company. However, their lawyers description of events goes something like this:
- Google launches service
- Google notices small company's product complements service
- Google aggressively promotes company's product
- Google starts providing similar product as part of service
It sounds to me like this is a "sour grapes" lawsuit. The company likely benefited tremendously from Google's promotion of it's product, and was probably expecting Google to simply buy them out and integrate the product. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Google developed an in-house solution, making their product redundant.
To put in traditional terms, if I ran a car company, and I promoted a certain brand of GPS in my dealerships, could that GPS company sue me once I started to integrate GPS systems into my vehicles?
Now, there may be many things we don't know, but when the plaintiffs lawyer makes things sound like this, it doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the merit of this lawsuit.
KD&W are not suing Google.
LimitNone is suing Google, and have retained KD&W as counsel.
I understand that many slashdotters (and people in general) have a distrust/dislike/hatred of lawyers, but is an important distinction to make.
KD&W was counsel for the other lawsuit mentioned in the summary, but they did not in fact sue Google. KD&W is used in a lot of IP/trade secret cases because they are good at it, particularly with respect to software. They have knowledge and they have experience.
Not that I'm defending lawyers in general here (forgot to wear my asbestos undergarments today), but when I use a paring knife to stab someone, do you get mad at the knife or do you get mad at me?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They contribute so much to our free economy!
When I got divorced, I was damned glad I had a good lwayer. When I subsequently filed bankrupcy, again I was glad I had a good lawyer.
When my then-wife ("Evil-X" for those of you who have seen the Paxil Diaries) was hit by a city truck that ran a red light, well, her lawyer sucked but the medical bills got paid. I was glad she hired the same guy for the divorce.
When your incompetent doctor who has lost his license in seven states (but there's no way for you to know that) leaves a sponge in your gut, you are going to need a good lawyer.
I guess your idea of a "free economy" is allowing me to steal from your store.
If you have injury and disease, you're going to need doctors. If you have computers, you are going to need programers. If you are going to have engines, you are going to need engineers. If you are going to have laws, you are going to need lawyers.
BTW, IANAL.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Google is a publicly traded company and as such here's what's important to them.....
Making money for their stockholders.
Despite all the happy horse hockey about "Do no evil", Google needed to amend it's mission statement once it became a publicly trade company to "We do less evil than everyone else"
Google is going to do what is best in their corporate interest. Surprised? Don't be. It's business
Slightly off-topic but it's amusing how "Don't be evil" or "Do no evil" gets touted as Google Inc.'s "core philosophy" or company motto.
When in reality it's chapter 6 of their Corporate Philosophy page, titled "You can make money without doing evil" -- outlining what kind of advertising you should use.
They aren't even talking about themselves; let alone their business model.
So why not give them some slack, everybody. They never claimed they are saints. (Although IMHO they are one of the better behaved companies out there.)
The concept of moving emails and all from Exchange is simple but doing for $19 per company, flawlessly, without need for customer support, without risk of blowing up the Exchange box would be really tough. Most people who are in the $19 product range are not that technical. If it wasn't perfect this would be brutal on the support staff. If Google was having trouble and this company showed them how not to have trouble, then Google seems to owe them something. Everyone always thinks the other person's product is easy....rare they think their own is.