Waymo Was Not Worried About Stolen Data Before Uber Lawsuit, Emails Reveal

The lawsuit between Google’s self-driving car division Waymo and Uber is one of the biggest legal kerfuffles in the tech industry right now and it stemmed from data that was allegedly stolen by a former employee. Now, it’s been revealed that Waymo engineers weren’t even all that worried about the stolen information, which could have a major impact on the direction of the case.

This new information was revealed when emails exchanged between a Waymo engineer and the company’s legal team was made public, Gizmodo reports. In the emails, the engineer essentially called the 14,000 documents that were allegedly stolen as “low-value” and that it does not ring any alarm bells in the engineer’s mind.

In the field of developing autonomous driving technology, it’s generally accepted that software is far more important than hardware. Since the Uber/Waymo lawsuit is centered around Lidar technology, this email suggests that the legal case really wasn’t even all that necessary to the company.

What’s more, it would seem that the nine trade secrets that Waymo is claiming Uber stole did not all come from the documents that were allegedly stolen. Apparently, only five even apply to the data that sparked the legal battle, so there is some confusion as to where Waymo is coming from in this regards.

Naturally, Uber’s legal team wasted no time pouncing on this new revelation, Bloomberg reports. The opposition has since been trying to use this internal email exchange to paint Waymo’s claims of document theft as inconsequential. In response, Google’s driverless car division said that the cab-hailing firm “is trying to make something out of nothing.”

Right now, legal experts are divided as to how damaging the emails are to Waymo’s chances of winning the lawsuit. Some are saying it could have a huge impact while others are more inclined to echo Waymo’s sentiments on the matter.