Open war between PayPal and Google Wallet. The bone of contention is PayPal’s trade secret infringement: a leak of information reportedly enabled the development of Google’s new service.
Newly launched, Google Wallet already has to pick up the “gauntlet” thrown down by PayPal, owned by eBay.
The accusation against Google is serious: trade secret infringement.
According to PayPal executives, there was a leak of information that led to the development of the new Wallet product.
No Hollywood-style espionage here: PayPal is simply accusing two of its former employees, who have now moved to Google, of providing information derived from PayPal to the Big G team working on the development phases of a new electronic payment system, which Google Wallet is today.
In addition to the lawsuit for trade secret infringement against Google, PayPal has also taken action against the two individual employees in question, named Stephanie Tilenius and Osama Bedier.
Tilenius, in particular, was a Google Vice President for e-commerce at the time. Contrary to company policy, she allegedly hired Bedier, who was working at PayPal on a project related to mobile payments, specifically in conjunction with the Android team.
So far, these are PayPal’s hypotheses – which have now become formal accusations.
For its part, Google has already responded with a firm defense: besides asserting that there was no “pilfering” of secrets or information, they are also defending the two individuals accused by PayPal.
According to Google, there is a principle of freedom that allows any employee to decide to change companies if the conditions (particularly economic ones) are better. However, this would not have involved the disclosure of previous projects handled by the two at PayPal.
This initial response does not satisfy PayPal, which is determined to see this matter, now a legal issue, through to the end.
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