Google sues Department of Interior

In the lawsuit, Google accuses the Dept. of only considering Microsoft products

Google is crying favoritism in a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Interior last Friday, in which the search giant claims that the department did not allow competitive bidding and only considered Microsoft products when buying email and collaboration software for its 88,000 employees.

According to the suit, Google accuses the Interior Department of being “unduly restrictive of competition” by only considering Microsoft and is thus in violation of the Competition in Contracting Act, which requires contract bidding to be competitive.  In the suit filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims, Google alleges that it tried to pitch its products to the department, but the government body ultimately limited its consideration exclusively to Microsoft.  The contract in question was worth $59.3 million. 

But is it really fair to accuse the government of favoritism because it eschewed Google’s cloud-based Apps in favor of Microsoft’s insulated Office software?  How secure is Web-based sharing technology?  There is some debate over the security of cloud computing, with Google insisting that its cloud-based Apps have been used safely by the state of Wyoming and the city of Los Angeles. 

“In cases like Los Angeles and Wyoming, those were open and competitive bid processes and we beat Microsoft fair and square, and taxpayers have saved millions of dollars along the way,” said Google spokesperson Andrew Kovacs in an interview with the New York Times.  Kovacs declined to comment on the lawsuit, itself.

In July, Google introduced Google Apps for Government, which pass federal security standards and guarantee that information is stored on servers in the United States only.  It is the first suite of cloud computing messaging and collaboration apps to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration. Microsoft, on the other hand, is not. 

“Google is a proponent of open competition on the Internet and in the technology sector in general," a Google spokesperson said via email.  "Here, a fair and open process could save US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and result in better services. We’re asking the Department of Interior to allow for a true competition when selecting its technology providers.”

But many still have doubts.  In 2009, cryptographer and security researcher Whitfield Diffie (points for name originality) spoke at a cloud computing security conference in Chicago.  Diffie won fame and notoriety in the tech world in 1976, when he solved the problem of how to securely pass along information to unlock encrypted material for intended recipients.  In an interview with Technology Review, Diffie described the concerns regarding cloud-computing security:

“From the view of a broad class of potential users it is very much like trusting the telephone company--or Gmail, or even the post office--to keep your communications private. People frequently place confidential information into the hands of common carriers and other commercial enterprises...The whole point of cloud computing is economy: if someone else can compute it cheaper than you can, it's more cost effective for you to outsource the computation.”

Google maintains that its cloud computing technology is secure and is currently serving 30 million users at businesses, schools, and other organizations.  Until the Department of Interior allows competitive bidding, Google is seeking to block the department from buying anymore software.

Image source: dynamicbusiness.com.au