Despite the fact that Google was one of the early-stage investors in taxi hailing company Uber it seems that the two are now at loggerheads over allegations of stolen secrets. Alphabet has alleged that Uber’s self-driving car project contains an array of striking similarities with Alphabet’s own project. Papers served to the court claim that Google was inadvertently copied in on an email from a component company reporting back to Uber on its self-driving car project. We await more detail when the case goes to court but this could have serious ramifications for Uber.
Former Google employee takes centre stage
A former engineer with Google is alleged to have downloaded more than 14,000 highly confidential files before his resignation. Claims by Google suggest that he was meticulous in trying to cover his tracks and conceal his activities. When the former engineer left the company, to launch a self-driving truck operation called Otto, the plot thickens when Uber went on to acquire his business. It will be interesting to see how this court case pans out because self-driving vehicles have attracted a lot of interest over the last couple of years. Indeed Tesla has been under constant pressure amid allegations that the system incorporated in its vehicles has been complicit in a number of serious accidents.
The very fact that Google once had extremely close ties with Uber is yet another sideshow to this particular legal action.
Uber under pressure on all fronts
Those who follow the financial markets will be well aware that Uber is under pressure on a whole array of different fronts. The company has been challenging self-employment law in the UK, experienced a difficult operating environment in China and now allegations of sexism. This is a company which quite literally came from nowhere and took the taxi industry to a whole different place. The operation very quickly spread its tentacles across all major markets and is now a multibillion dollar operation.
As ever, successful businesses have historically encountered an array of “growing pains” and it looks as though Uber is now going through its difficult phase. No doubt Google’s parent company Alphabet will be looking for significant compensation if allegations are proved, the self-employment issue will cost the company millions of pounds and we can only guess how much compensation could be claimed if a culture of sexism is proven.
Industrial espionage
Industrial espionage has been ongoing forever and a day, we have seen it with pharmaceutical companies, Formula One and now allegations that Uber may have obtained secrets about Alphabet’s self-driving car project. Legally it is very difficult to silence those who decide to move elsewhere having been an integral part of top secret operations. Whether indeed Uber has acted unlawfully remains to be seen but these very public allegations, and other issues in the public domain, do not reflect very well on the company.
Even though Google obviously made its name in the search engine industry it is now looking at everything from artificial intelligence to self-driving vehicles. Recently Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook suggested he “wanted to change the world” but maybe that quote should have been attributed to Google?