The popular transportation network company, Uber is facing problems recently when Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. has accused them of stealing trade secrets to jumpstart their company. The accusation threatens to lead their anticipated self-driving auto programs to be closed down.
Google And Uber Goes To Court Over Trade Secrets Conspiracy
It has been reported that Uber Technologies Inc., which is widely known as simply Uber, has gone before the court to face accusations brought up by Alphabet Inc. The Google parent company has accused Uber of plotting a scheme with a former Google employee to steal important and confidential information on the technology prepared for Google’s upcoming self-driving cars.
Just like Uber, Google has planned on launching their own line of self-driving car program and the two companies have become rivals because of it. According to Google, their former Waymo engineer, Anthony Levandowski, who is now the executive for Uber, took with him technical and trade secrets from Waymo and put them into use when he helped developed Uber. Waymo is a subsidiary company of Alphabet Inc.
Uber Will Face Devastating Consequences If Accusation Is True
The accusations reveal alleged details on how the act of conspiracy between Levandowski and Uber took place. If Google’s accusations are proven and turn out to be true, according to experts, it will be a big blow to Uber. Investment worth $68 billion in Uber was mainly put up because of their self-driving program with investors believing that the company is an evolving business in that market and with the said program potentially shutting down, they'll lose a lot.
However, it has been raised that Google sued Uber and not Levandowski. This means the situation will be different if it is proven that Uber is actually innocent of the accusations. Despite the details presented by Waymo, there is no proof indicating that Uber had any knowledge that Levandowski was actually sharing company secrets or instructed the former Waymo engineer to download and reveal Google’s information on self-driving technology.
