More supposedly secret information has emerged from Google as a leak to a prominent blogger. Considering the company’s penchant for secrecy, especially in light of their fight with the Department of Justice, how could data escape from Google unless it has been permitted to do so.
Bruce Clay liked my quip about Google bypassing formal public relations efforts in favor of selective leaks to bloggers that he mentioned it on his blog.
First TechCrunch got wind of Google’s YouTube acquisition on the Friday before the announcement. Then Google Blogoscoped picked up a copy of the GDrive client called Platypus. Nice finds by Michael Arrington and Philipp Lenssen, excellent bloggers both.
Now Lenssen has delivered another choice post of internal Google information. Assuming it is legitimate, Google either has a serious little mole problem, or they are putting this stuff out there on purpose.
If there is a leaker embedded within the Googleplex who is handing out company goals, it will be interesting to see if Google takes after Apple and goes after Lenssen to find the source of the leak. If they don’t take aggressive action, it will be much harder to think of this material as being leaked rather than planted.
The problem with the idea of such information being planted is the question of why do so. Storage clients and documents discussing concepts like “70% user happiness” build some buzz, but don’t offer a lot of concrete details. Google wants to beat up on its competitors? That’s news?
Google doesn’t need more buzz than it already gets. Leaks or plants? Maybe it is a combination of both.
We did ask for some additional details regarding the documents, and received a polite no-comment in response: “Like many companies, Google has a regular planning and goal setting process. The result of this process is, of course, confidential and proprietary information, which we do not discuss publicly. We are unable to provide additional information.”
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
