Google Twists the Knife, Asks For Sanctions Against Oracle Attorney (arstechnica.com)

Google isn't done with its victory over Oracle. Court filings suggest that Google will be filing a motion for sanctions against Oracle and its law firm, Orrick, Sutcliffe & Herrington. The Mountain View-based company is apparently irked that Oracle attorney disclosed the financial agreements between Google and Apple. From an Ars Technica report: Speaking in open court, Oracle attorney Annette Hurst said that Google's Android operating system had generated revenue of $31 billion and $22 billion in profit. She also disclosed that Google pays Apple $1 billion to keep Google's search bar on iPhones. "Look at the extraordinary magnitude of commerciality here," Hurst told a magistrate judge as she discussed the revenue figures. The $1 billion figure comes from a revenue-split that gives Apple a portion of the money that Google makes off searches that originate on iPhones. The revenue share figure was 34 percent, "at one point in time," according to Hurst. Google lawyers asked for the figure to be struck from the record. "That percentage just stated, that should be sealed," Google lawyer Robert Van Nest said, according to a transcript of the hearing. "We are talking hypotheticals here. That's not a publicly known number."

Comments

It's not a publicly known number

[fustakrakich]

Therefore it doesn't exist! We're in the world of Harry Potter

Re:It's not a publicly known number

[93 Escort Wagon]

It is now.

Re:It's not a publicly known number

[Anonymous Coward]

It exists, but not in the context you and Oracle's lawyers think. It's a hypothetical, a.k.a made up number. It's not a number that was "disclosed", it was a "claim" presented as fact. Which probably explains why Google is pissed off, and thinks it can get Oracle and said lawyers sanctioned.

Re:It's not a publicly known number

[fustakrakich]

I think Google's reaction shows the number wasn't so "made up". Otherwise they could have just stated so much.

Re: It's not a publicly known number

[fustakrakich]

Well, to be honest, they are fighting over imaginary property. It's more like gambling in the Lawsuit Casino

Re:It's not a publicly known number

[fustakrakich]

No, I would just say he 's a liar. What's to get pissed about?

Re:It's not a publicly known number

[fustakrakich]

They aren't calling them liars. They were pissed about their contract being exposed and want it stricken for not being public knowledge, nothing there about it being false.

Re:It's not a publicly known number

[mark-t]

No... because illegally acquired evidence doesn't change its status of being illegally acquired simply because it is known. If the only reason to dismiss that point is because it wasn't publicly known, unless it was also actually illegal to disclose it, making the evidence illegally acquired, and inadmissible on that basis, then there would be no further reason to keep it from evidence from that point forward.

It should be...

[SeattleLawGuy]

Google only had what, a 28 billion cost of revenue for 2015? A billion dollars out of that mix starts to be a big enough number that there's an argument it should be publicly disclosed in SEC filings. I'm not saying it necessarily has to be, just that there would be public policy reasons for it. It better informs the investors and transparency generally results in healthier markets, because it allows for more competition between bidders.

so NOW google thinks privacy matters?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's rich.

This doesn't strike me as knife twisting

[rsilvergun]

Do you have any idea how valuable that number is to anyone partnering with Google? It's also likely to cause Google some headaches during their next round of negotiations with Apple. I'd want compensation too, and whatever they get probably won't be anywhere near what they lost. The threat of Dragging stuff like this out in the open during a lawsuit is one of the main reasons companies settle out of court.

Re:This doesn't strike me as knife twisting

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how valuable all the data Google collects about me (no matter that I try to block them from doing so) is to me? Yet they make it their business to collect it for their own profit, over my objections.

I have ZERO sympathy for Google losing some of their precious privacy, when they have made it their business to destroy the entire concept of privacy for the "little people".

Re:This doesn't strike me as knife twisting

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no privacy exposed. There was a claim in court that had zero facts as true, that was presented. Lets hear how you justify that?

Re:Exactly, there is no public contract.

[fustakrakich]

Get a clue yourself! They are not arguing the facts, just their exposure.

Re:$1 billion for staying on a search bar

[HiThere]

So now you're believing the word of both Oracle and a lawyer.
I strongly suspect that Google *is* paying Apple to stay as their default search engine, after all, they paid Mozilla. But the amount is currently unsupported except by the word of a couple of professional liars. (For the purpose of the prior sentence I'm pretending that Oracle counts as a person.)

Re:Oracle sells software, Google sells privacy

[HiThere]

Google sells access to your privacy. It's against their business model to actually sell the information about you, instead what they sell is access to a demographic that includes you.

Thus: In *this* aspect Oracle is the evil party...though not because they sell software and hardware, but rather because they are trying to monetize APIs. (There are other reasons, but less related to this case.)

Re:Oracle sells software, Google sells privacy

[HiThere]

Assuming you're not a troll:
The don't sell information on you, or information about you. The let people buy ads that will be shown to a defined demographic. Who is in that demographic is a company confidential secret.

If they sold information about who was in the demographic, others could place ads without paying them. So they keep it a secret. But they look for ways to place ads where they can act as a middleman, because that lets them maximize their profit.

P.S.: This information is around a decade old now, but I've seen no indication that anything about it has changed.

Oracle deliberately broke the rules

[Required Snark]

Bringing this up in open court was a deliberate and hostile act. Oracle and their attorneys knew that this was very proprietary number and that putting it into circulation would damage both Apple and Google. Now when any of the big players negotiates fees with either Google or Apple they will have this benchmark. It's a game changer.

It is impossible that this was a mistake by Oracle and their law firm. It's very normal that corporations learn proprietary information during a big suit like this, and there are all sorts of rules pertaining to how it can be used and who has a right to see it. Without these rules legal actions would be used all the time to find out how the competition is doing internally.

Take a look at the letter that Google's law firm sent to the judges in the case. It's short and does not contain too much legalese. It refers to the relevant case law and asks the judge for sanctions. They are going after both Oracle and their law firm, and accuse them abusing the courts and not respecting the judges.

Accordingly, Google respectfully requests permission to file a motion for a finding of contempt and the imposition of sanctions, including but not limited to: an Order precluding further access by Ms. Hurst to Google and third-party confidential information; an Order requiring all of Oracle’s counsel to sign undertakings under the Protective Order, reinforcing the importance of the Order; an award of Google’s attorneys’ fees and costs necessitated by Oracle’s and its counsel’s violations of the Protective Order; and such other relief as the Court deems appropriate.

This is the legal way of asking the judge to throw the book and Oracle and it's lawyers. Asking to have the Oracle legal team sign a document saying they will obey the law in the future makes them look really, really bad. Asking that Hurst not be allowed to see information means she can't continue to work on the case. If her law firm is looking for a scapegoat for loosing, she just got a target on her back. This sanction could end her career, so it is not likely it will be granted. Still, findings of contempt are very serious and have significant longer term impact. It boils down to how far the judges think that Oracle's law firm went over the line and how much they disrespected the judges and the law. People sitting on the bench take this very seriously so it could be a big deal.