We always have to be cautious while sending the emails, especially when sending email using the Carbon Copy (Cc) option. The news we are going to share with you details the dangers of mismanagement while sending out Cc email. Although claims made by the Waymo are quite amusing since the CC’d email informed to the company about mass stealing of their trade secrets which containing documents, it sure does enlighten us how the Carbon Copy feature can lead us in trouble.
According to their own blog post, Waymo, a famous self-driving car company has accused an ex-Google engineer, the founder of Otto and the top-ranked Uber exec, Anthony Levandowski, for stealing nearly 14,000 confidential documents from the Google before his left. These stolen documents site Waymo in the lawsuit contained the key technology secrets. These were schematics of a circuit board in the documents and also other details about the main mechanisms of self-driving technology including the LiDAR technology and the radar related information. The allegations can be read in detail here:
Otto is a self-driving truck firm which is regarded as a ride-hail magnet nowadays. The Waymo also claimed that what made them aware of this treachery was just an email that was accidentally CC’d by one of component vendors of the LiDAR and the Waymo received it as their email address got copied in that mail. Waymo explained that the email contents in detail of its complaint submitted to the court:
Furthermore, the Waymo has claimed that this is not a result of sheer luck at all on the Otto’s part, but it was a “concerted plan” devised by the Levandowski to steal the “trade secrets and intellectual property of Waymo.”
Waymo alleged in its complaint that Levandowski has told his colleagues a few months back, before the stealing of such a huge number of documents, that he was planning to replicate its competitor Waymo’s technology.