Google executives’ saccharine best-selling book: “How Google Works,” predictably ignores and whitewashes how Google steals to make its free model work.
This piece spotlights the likely “Post-it Child” of Google theft victims and five other theft victims that Google has stolen from using its signature MO or “Google Con.” It also links to another nineteen victims for a total of at least twenty five examples of Google’s theft and piracy. Corporate kleptomania is “How Google Works.”
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information for free. Its business model is to generate ad revenue on only the sliver of information that users find and click on.
So Google respecting property rights – whether it is privacy, confidential information, trade secrets, copyrights, patents or trademarks – would be prohibitively expensive because their world view presumes that digitized information should be free.
So to make their model work, a key part of Google’s modus operandi or MO is to take, steal, or pirate what it needs. If caught, Google then demonizes its theft or piracy victims. If sued, Google then slow-rolls and exhausts the complainants’ patience and resources. This is “How Google Works.”
The “Post-it child” of Google theft victims
If one were to look for a “Post-it child” of Google theft victims to spotlight Google’s corporate kleptomania, it easily could be VSL-Max Sound.
That’s because they are the beneficiary of a huge irretrievable mistake by Google.
Google left “smoking gun” evidence -- in the form of highly-incriminating “Post-it Notes” attached to a returned non-disclosure-agreement.
These Post-it Notes effectively chronicled Google’s predatory plans for stealing VSL-Max Sound’s industry-leading, video streaming trade secrets and patented technology that Google then would use -- without permission or payment -- to dramatically increase the video transmission quality and cost efficiency of YouTube’s 10 billion daily video streams.
Two VSL-Max Sound lawsuits against Google, one for stealing trade secrets and the other for patent infringement, chronicle a now all-too-familiar pattern of Google fraud and theft – “the Google Con.”
“The Google Con”
Google has perfected a classic con that is simple and ruthlessly effective.
First, Google professes an interest in either licensing or buying an entity’s technologies or company. Second, Google signs a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement with the now very eager entity. Third, Google’s technology experts extract as many trade secrets as possible in its supposed “due diligence” process. Fourth, Google secretly reverse-engineers and implements the stolen trade secrets and patented technology without permission or payment. Fifth, Google leaves the eager entity hanging. Sixth, if the entity sues, Google slow rolls and legally exhausts the complainants’ patience and resources.
Why does this latest VSL-Max sound example matter?
First, it’s rare for Google to get caught red-handed using their own words and materials, during one of its signature thefts of other’s trade secrets and intellectual property.
Until this big mistake, Google had been quite expert at covering its tracks, destroying email evidence, or settling, in order to get incriminating evidence sealed from the public.
However, if one shakes down competitors enough times, someone eventually will get careless and leave a “smoking gun” where it can be found and used in court to convict the perpetrator.
Second, it shows law enforcement a signature Google modus operandi or conspiracy-MO that may have harmed at least 25 different entities throughout the American economy over several years, and that may warrant some form of a RICCO law enforcement investigation.
Third, “smoking gun” incriminating evidence of egregious illegal behavior can encourage other victims to come forward, speak up and confirm that Google has stolen from them, and engaged in similar fraudulent schemes.
Google’s corporate kleptomania chronicles
Anyone that doubts “the Google Con” is well-established and ongoing illegal behavior at Google should consider the stories and suits of at least five victims who have learned the hard way – How Google Steals.
Overture: Most don’t know that Google’s hugely profitable ad-auction model was a trade secret and patented process that Google learned from, and then stole wholesale, from Overture in an eerily similar way to “The Google Con” that the VSL-Max Sound lawsuits chronicle. Importantly, Google eventually settled with Overture for ~$250m in 2004, in order to seal the record from the public and smooth the way for its blockbuster initial public offering (IPO.)
Skyhook Wireless: Skyhook Wireless, the then leader in WiFi location targeting efficiency, charged that Google stole its trade secrets in one lawsuit, and its patented technology in another lawsuit, effectively alleging the same basic type of “Google Con” that the VSL-Max Sound lawsuits allege. Incriminating emails document willful infringement by Google’s leadership.
Engineered Architecture – To bring the “Google con” to vivid life in a very personal account, listen to how world-renowned, Israeli-American architect of skyscrapers, Eli Attia, chronicles how “Google stole his life’s work.” Apparently, Google X is currently stealing and building a new business around Attia’s patented “Engineered Architecture” invention, a revolutionary new design and construction technology which integrates architecture and engineering to dramatically lower the time and cost of building large complex structures. Late in life, Mr. Attia currently laments he “cannot initiate a legal battle against one of the greatest economic giants in the world.”
BuySafe:According to its patent infringement lawsuit, BuySafe effectively alleges it was the victim of a form of the “The Google Con,” in charging that Google deceptively and illegally gained access to BuySafe’s trade secrets to advance Google’s own competing “Trusted Stores” program.
Be In-CamUp: Business Insider has a good description of, and a link to, the lawsuit Be In-CamUp filed against Google for theft of trade secrets, breach of contract and copyright infringement for stealing significant technology behind Google Hangouts. Sadly, it is yet another eerily-similar example of “The Google Con” in action.
For those who still are reticent to believe that stealing and pirating from competitors is actually “How Google Works,” why would these nineteen additional companies or associations have sued Google for stealing from them: Yelp, Viacom, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, business directories, wire services, newspapers, broadcasters, movie studios, authors, publishers, visual artists, software providers, photographers, artists, graphic designers, illustrators, and filmmakers?
And why would the State Attorney General, who has most investigated Google wrongdoing, theft and piracy, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, conclude: “In my 10 years as attorney general, I have dealt with a lot of large corporate wrongdoers. I must say that yours is the first I have encountered to have no corporate conscience for the safety of its customers, the viability of its fellow corporations or the negative economic impact on the nation which has allowed your company to flourish” -- in an official letter to Google CEO Larry Page last year?
And for those who are reticent to believe that Google routinely seeks to cover-up its patterns of theft and other wrongdoing, read the investigative report by the non-profit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called “Uncivil Secrecy.”
In sum, despite Google’s cynical public claim to Liberation that “We do not steal,” and its public claim to the Daily Mail that “We are a law-abiding company” the overwhelming public evidence to date is that stealing from competitors is “How Google Works.”
Simply, Google is not a law-abiding competitor.
Just like Google has acted anti-competitively in serially disrespecting users’ privacy and security with its WorldWideWatch dominance and abuses of dominance, Google also has engaged in an anti-competitive pattern of serial theft and piracy chronicled here -- in order to make its “free” model add up.
Think about it. How can any law abiding competitor hope to compete with a company that serially defrauds, steals and pirates competitors’ confidential information, trade secrets, copyrights, patents, and trademarks, in order to gain unbeatable, ill-gotten, and anti-competitive cost, time-to-market, inventory, and innovation advantages?
Google is right that it does not “work” like any other company.
“How Google Works” is like a 21st Century Robber Baron.
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Google Disrespect for Property Series
Part 1: Google TV: Dumb Content vs. Content is King [10-7-10]
Part 2: Why Google's Motorola Patent Play Backfires [9-9-11]
Part 3: Google 21st Century Robber Baron [9-19-11]
Part 4: Google's "Infringenovation" Secrets [10-3-11]
Part 5: Google's Piracy Liabilities [11-9-11]
Part 6: Grand Theft Automated! Online Ad Economics Fuel Piracy, Oppose SOPA [11-30-11]
Part 7: The Evidence Google's Systematic Theft is Anti-Competitive [1-20-12]
Part 8: The Real Reasons Google Killed SOPA/PIPA [1-24-12]
Part 9: Google's Rap Sheet [6-4-12]
Part 10: Googleopoly IX: Google-Motorola's Patents of Mass Destruction [7-10-12]
Part 11: Four Under-Appreciated Implications for Google from Apple-Samsung Verdict [9-5-12]
Part 12: What Made Apple's Steve Jobs So Angry with Google-Android? [9-6-12]
Part 13: Google News-ster, Google Book-ster, YouTube-ster, Android-ster [11-2-12]
Part 14: Google's Content Settlements are a Tacit Admission It is an Essential Facility [2-11-13]
Part 15: Google protesteth Larry Ellison too much that Google does not steal [8-28-13]
Part 16: Special Report: Google on Piracy: Not Telling the Whole Truth [10-4-13]
Part 17: Brito & Google: BlameThePiracyVictims.org [10-17-13]
Part 18: Google-YouAd is a Deceptive and Unfair Business Practice [10-24-13]
Part 19: Google’s Extensive Cover-up [2-25-14]
Part 20: Google’s Widespread Wiretapping [3-20-14]
Part 21: Google AdSense Lawsuit Spotlights the Corruption of Unaccountability [5-23-14]
Part 22: Google’s Illusion of Data Protection Security [9-7-14]
Part 23: Google Profiting from Hacked Celebrity Women Photos is “How Google Works” [10-6-14]
