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Google discloses paid bloggers to judge in Oracle case, lists Stanford prof. Mark Lemley as ‘outside counsel’

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We told you earlier this month that a judge in the Google/Oracle case ordered the companies to disclose any payments it made to journalists, bloggers, and other members of media who made commentary or reported on the lawsuit. It was no secret at the time, but even paid blogger Florian Mueller of Foss Patents admitting previously that Oracle, in addition to other companies such as Microsoft, funded some of the posts on his blog.

Oracle later disclosed to the courts that Mueller was indeed a paid “consultant.” Today, we get an update on Google’s follow up to the judge’s request in a recent court filing (via The Verge).

While the majority of the people listed by Google include former interns, copyright lawyers, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Verge noted Mark Lemley, a Stanford professor who is often quoted by Google with no mention of the relationship, appears on the list as Google’s “outside counsel” for unrelated cases. Another name mentioned in the document is Google employee Tim Bray. The document cited tweets made by Bray from his personal Twitter account related to the case:


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Judge orders Google, Oracle to disclose payments made to bloggers

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A judge ruled today that Google and Oracle must disclose any payments made to Internet authors, journalists, or bloggers for published commentary related to the Google vs. Oracle lawsuit involving Android software.

The trial is just now ending, but Judge William Alsup issued a court order (PDF) today that calls for both companies to divulge which Internet-based journalists were compensated. The judge is apparently concerned that evidence in the case includes analysis from influenced bloggers.

FOSS Patents‘ Florian Mueller revealed in April that Oracle and Microsoft pay for posts on his blog, where he regularly discusses the Google vs. Oracle case.

The full court order is below: 


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