Judge Says Google Still Isn't Being Forthright About Paid Bloggers

From DailyTech: Google Inc. (GOOG) beat Oracle Corp. (ORCL), in the Java infringement lawsuit, but even before the inevitable appeal, it is struggling with embarrassing questions regarding payments to bloggers.

Oracle and Florian Mueller -- a blogger who for months predicted Google would lose the case -- announced late in the case that they had established a financial relationship. Mr. Mueller, now a paid Oracle consultant, claimed that his earlier commentary was not biased, but rather was simply a testament to how unpredictable legal cases are.

Oracle implied in filings before Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose/San Francisco) that Google might have similar paid "independent" analysts. Judge Alsup agreed, ordering both companies to disclose their payments to media, suggesting that in this digital age of instant news, such payments could bias the jury, and hence be applicable in an appeal.

But according to Reuters, Judge Alsup said Google's list -- which included no paid analysts for the case -- was misleading. He said that Google must submit a revised list indicating not only authors paid specifically for comments on the case, but also those who commented while receiving indirect payments (such as advertising deals) from Google.

Of course, most news sites use Google Ads to some degree, and most tech sites who sell banner ad have sold some advertisements to Google or its Android partners. Presumably all these payments are fair game -- which would suggest that Google will have to list nearly every news site.

Comments Judge Alsup, "Rather, the order was designed to bring to light authors whose statements about the issues in the case might have been influenced by the receipt of money from Google or Oracle... Google suggests that it has paid so many commenters that it will be impossible to list them all... Please simply do your best but the impossible is not required. Oracle managed to do it."

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