The search giant is being sued by publishers and the Authors'
Guild over the digitisation of thousands of books which they say
was conducted without authors' and publishers' consent. Google is
pursuing a plan to digitise the contents of four US university
libraries, the Oxford University library and the New York Public
Library.
It had issued subpoenas to Yahoo! and Amazon.com seeking details
of the book digitising programmes of those two companies. Google
sought commercially sensitive details from its competitors, such as
costs, details of discussions with publishers and sales
estimates.
Yahoo! has now joined Amazon.com in rejecting Google's request
for information.
The request was an attempt to gain access to trade secrets,
Yahoo! suggested. "There is simply no need for Google to be peering
into the minds and computers of Yahoo employees," wrote Yahoo!'s
lawyer in a list of objections to the request it sent to Google
last week.
Authors' representatives and publishers sued Google in a federal
court because it proceeded with its programme without their
permission. Microsoft and Yahoo! are both involved in book scanning
activity but with the co-operation of the book industry in a
programme called the Open Content Alliance.
The OCA has as a specific aim, the principle that all scanned
books will always remain in the public domain, and has the backing
of major libraries including the UK's National Archives.
Google had said that the court would protect any commercially
sensitive information sent by competitors to it, but the companies
have still rejected the request.
