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.

Comments

Re:Get Rich

[Bandman]

A successful lawsuit against Google could be like the small pebble that causes a landslide.

$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.

And I'm willing to bet that once it happened, Microsoft would be more than happy to finance as many as possible.

Typical Large Company (Google's PR)?

[mrpacmanjel]

I have to admit if the allegations are true then Google probably has one of the best Marketing/PR departments in the world.

I've been in the IT industry for a long time and I can still remember Microsoft's public image was similar many, many years ago! (anyone remember a small company called 'Stac'?) and it's now happening again, same 'strategy' - different company!

Initially I was skeptical when I started reading the article (I know, I know I have just broken a Slashdot cardinal rule) when I read this:

"..the potential for 50 million users - was "just too big to come from someone else" and that "this is how Google operates.."

quoted from Scott McMullan, a senior executive in the Google Apps partner program

Moral of the story?

It's ok to be a 'partner' to a large company as long as your product is not *too* popular or successful.

Anyone partnering with a large company should learn lessons from this - remember a large companie's main responsibility is to it's shareholders - they are the people who want a return on thier investment and usually at any cost!

Re:Get Rich

[mdfst13]

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.

Emphasis mine. How much money would Google make from their free product? Of course, reading more finds that the claim is that Google is integrating this into their paid product (Google Apps Premier) rather than giving it away for free. Perhaps you knew that, but it wasn't evident in what you said.

Incidentally, there is a better written article at http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9976405-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

In particular, that article points out that LimitNone is claiming that it divulged technical secrets to Google that Google then used in making its own product. Also, Google apparently changed its Google Apps interface in May of 2008, which caused the gMove product to break. That's apparently the violation of Illinois consumer laws.

Is that related to the differences between Standard and Premier? Apparently Standard does not allow for third party integrations but Premier does. Did Google tell LimitNone that the free version would always support gMove? If so, that will be interesting, as it will help to set expectations around how long Google, eBay, Amazon, etc. have to maintain API compatibility when they want to break it. All of them offer programs like this that allow third party developers to create apps that integrate with their platform. How long are those integrations warranted to work?

The real problem here is not in the relationship between Google and LimitNone but between Google and users of Apps standard edition. Google had been encouraging its users to pay $19 for this product but the functionality no longer works. Further, it apparently stopped working as a result of changes that Google made. If it turns out that it stopped working because Google started charging for something that it previously offered for free, should Google pay back the $19 to users?

Re:Get Rich

[dubl-u]

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. To me, this turns on designing for actual use, for normal operator error.

McDonald's put special holes in their building to sell stuff to people in cars. The put scalding-hot coffee in flimsy, slippery cups with flimsy, slippery lids, and then give you cream and sugar separately. And they do this to early-morning, pre-caffeine zombies. It should not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you do this millions of times a day, some people are going to end up in the hospital without expecting it.

VW plans for normal operator error in a host of ways. Good visibility. Good lights. Good user feedback through gauges, car feel, and road feel. Brakes and steering built to handle emergencies. Seat belts, frames, air bags, and a bunch of other little touches optimized for survival after error.

McDonald's, on the other hand, even after being told that they were putting people in the hospital unnecessarily, shrugged and carried on.