Friday, July 29, 2005

TRO issued in favor of Microsoft

"The equities dictate that a temporary restraining order ... should be entered," wrote Judge Steven Gonzalez. He also ordered Microsoft to post $1 million by Tuesday, which could be used to compensate Google and Lee if Gonzalez or another judge later decides that Microsoft wasn't entitled to the injunction.

Microsoft alleged that its desktop search product (which searches users' hard drives) was "recently developed by Lee's group at Microsoft," and that Lee had responsibility for "managing the creation of new search technologies and methodologies for Microsoft."

But Google and Lee dispute that characterization. "Lee was never responsible for algorithmic Internet search at Microsoft, never saw that code, and never participated in a review," alleged Google in its court papers. What's more, while Lee had "oversight responsibility" for a team dubbed "MSN Search," this responsibility lasted for just one year between 2001 and 2002--at least three years before Microsoft launched its own organic search product in beta late last year--according to Google's papers.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Goldman Sachs 6th Annual Internet Conference

Las Vegas, NV (Bellagio) May 25, 2005
Eric Schmidt (Google) Keynote (audio only)
See also Analyst Day
February 9, 2005 (slides + audio)
Source

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Microsoft sues Google

SearchViews
Microsoft Press Release (in part): Today Microsoft filed a lawsuit against a former executive and Google regarding breach of Microsoft’s employee confidentiality and non-compete agreement. Kai-Fu Lee, former corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Services Division, has accepted a position with Google to lead their China research and development center. We are asking the Court to require Dr. Lee and Google to honor the confidentiality and non-competition agreements he signed when he began working for Microsoft.
Forbes

Friday, July 15, 2005

AFP v. Google

Google News:Fair Use? (March 22, 2005)
Robots.txt and Copyright: The Other Shoe Drops (July 14, 2005)
This debate is also occurring for Google’s robots in AFP v. Google News, questioning whether Google News has the right to reprint headlines and pictures on an aggregating site. The Internet would be unusable without bots and indexes, and it would be much less useful without archives.