It appears the everyone's new favorite borg-like monolith corporation is taking it on the chin once again for overly aggressive go-to-market strategies.  This time allegations have surfaced about how Google treats its technology partners, specifically with respect to IP infringement.  Apparently Chicago-based company LimitNone is claiming Google's partnership with them, as a third party developer brought on to enhance Google products, went awry when they decided to just steal the small software company's technology.  This technology was rolled into a Google Apps product that basically allows users to migrate their MS Outlook email and contacts into gMail products.  LimitNone CEO, Ray Glassman states, "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... we had to take a stand".

 

 

And of course LimitNone's legal team had a few thoughts on the matter as well (with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads we're sure).  "It's shocking that Google would engage in this type of conduct; particularly when the other party is a small software company that built its business specifically to help Google sell its existing and future products,” said Greenspon. “People need to realize that Google is just another large publicly traded corporation that will do whatever it takes to increase its revenue, even if that means risking its reputation among developers.”

As of late, it certainly seems that Google is a target-rich environment for litigation and that's typically what happens when large corporations get larger and continue to dominate their markets.  When you're so large that one of your products becomes a household name for an entire market of products (let me "Google" this), it's safe to say folks will be gunning for you.  On the flip side, as the old saying goes, where there's smoke there's probably a fire.  We imagine the lawyers will sort through all that though, in painstakingly, costly detail.