Waymo To Keep Robotaxi Safety Details Secret, Court Rules (techcrunch.com) 16
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Waymo, the autonomous driving arm of Alphabet, was granted a win on Tuesday when a California court ruled it could keep certain details regarding its AV technology secret. The company filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Motor Vehicles in late January in order to keep some information about its autonomous vehicle deployment permit, as well as emails between the DMV and the company, redacted from a public record request, which was originally filed by an undisclosed third party. The ruling by the California Superior Court, Sacramento could set a precedent for broader trade secret protection, at least in the autonomous vehicle industry, involving public access to information that has to do with public safety, but which businesses claim contain trade secrets.
In its lawsuit, Waymo argued being forced to reveal trade secrets would undermine its investments into automated driving technology and have a "chilling effect across the industry" where the DMV is no longer a safe space for companies to transparently share information about their tech. "We're pleased that the court reached the right decision in granting Waymo's request for a preliminary injunction, precluding the disclosure of competitively-sensitive trade secrets that Waymo had included in the permit application it submitted to the CA DMV," a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We will continue to openly share safety and other data on our autonomous driving technology and operations, while recognizing that detailed technical information we share with regulators is not always appropriate for sharing with the public." [...] "These R&D efforts take many years and an enormous financial investment," reads Waymo's declaration shared with the court. "Waymo's AV development began as part of Google in 2009 before Waymo became its own company in 2016; therefore, Waymo's AVs have been in development for more than 12 years. Waymo has invested truly significant amounts researching and developing its AV products." It is difficult, however, to determine whether or not the information actually contains trade secrets without being able to see any of it.
"The question is, can the company derive economic value purely from not sharing that information with others?" Matthew Wansley, former general counsel of nuTonomy (which Aptiv acquired) and a law professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in New York, told TechCrunch. [...] "I looked through the complaint that Waymo filed, and the categories of information they're talking about are pretty broad," said Wansley. "Are there trade secrets in that set of information that they sent? Probably, there are some. Does it include all of the information they sent? Almost certainly not. The only thing that would surprise me is if everything they're claiming is a trade secret is actually a trade secret. But without knowing the specific information that they share with regulators, it's just hard to know." And now the public will never know. In an effort to assuage any fears about its technology, the report notes that Waymo "has submitted a safety self-assessment to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and is publishing a law enforcement interaction guide and a detailed description of its safety methodologies."
In its lawsuit, Waymo argued being forced to reveal trade secrets would undermine its investments into automated driving technology and have a "chilling effect across the industry" where the DMV is no longer a safe space for companies to transparently share information about their tech. "We're pleased that the court reached the right decision in granting Waymo's request for a preliminary injunction, precluding the disclosure of competitively-sensitive trade secrets that Waymo had included in the permit application it submitted to the CA DMV," a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We will continue to openly share safety and other data on our autonomous driving technology and operations, while recognizing that detailed technical information we share with regulators is not always appropriate for sharing with the public." [...] "These R&D efforts take many years and an enormous financial investment," reads Waymo's declaration shared with the court. "Waymo's AV development began as part of Google in 2009 before Waymo became its own company in 2016; therefore, Waymo's AVs have been in development for more than 12 years. Waymo has invested truly significant amounts researching and developing its AV products." It is difficult, however, to determine whether or not the information actually contains trade secrets without being able to see any of it.
"The question is, can the company derive economic value purely from not sharing that information with others?" Matthew Wansley, former general counsel of nuTonomy (which Aptiv acquired) and a law professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law in New York, told TechCrunch. [...] "I looked through the complaint that Waymo filed, and the categories of information they're talking about are pretty broad," said Wansley. "Are there trade secrets in that set of information that they sent? Probably, there are some. Does it include all of the information they sent? Almost certainly not. The only thing that would surprise me is if everything they're claiming is a trade secret is actually a trade secret. But without knowing the specific information that they share with regulators, it's just hard to know." And now the public will never know. In an effort to assuage any fears about its technology, the report notes that Waymo "has submitted a safety self-assessment to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and is publishing a law enforcement interaction guide and a detailed description of its safety methodologies."
That sounds so familiar (Score:3)
Waymo "has submitted a safety self-assessment to the U.S. Department of Transportation
Where have I heard that before?
the trail of Elaine Herzberg better help things (Score:3)
the trail of Elaine Herzberg better help things go the other way or we may see more cases in where some person who just used the device is doing the hard time.
Re: (Score:2)
Whereas Waymos do not.
Re: (Score:2)
Waymo does use safety drivers. Not in all cars, but in some.
We all know what this is about (Score:3)
It\s not likely to work
It didn't work for GM with the Corvair
It didn't work for Ford with the Pinto
It will, however forestall disclosure until lives are lost, which is unfortunate.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, and doing so can also kill the market. I mean, Tesla is doing a good job by themselves of making a piss-poor self driving system.
Being transparent and telling people why we can't have this tomorrow is far better. We know there are plenty of accidents where the fault lies in the
Re: (Score:2)
It's about hiding safety issues from the public.
It is. It is the only way to get this tech into actual use though, at least in the US. It has to go into use with a list of remaining safety issues because that is the only way to identify, prioritize and remove the ones that need removing. All tech has safety issues. The thing is that all mature tech has safety issues that are very unlikely to get hit in normal operation. For self-driving, because it is new, the claims will be "knowingly made a defective product", even if this tech already will kill and ma
Re: (Score:2)
It's about hiding safety issues from the public.
You're right we shouldn't do this. We need to be open. Please post your drivers license, vehicle registration and your entire previous driving record, insurance claims, as well as your current insurance company and coverage into the reply box.
Thanks. Remember it's for the public good.
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't asking to cover up serious accidents, not least because there aren't any to cover up. They are asking to keep data on things like how often the system requires human intervention a secret. That's a safety issue, and also a really good indicator to their competitors as to how close they are to having a fully self driving vehicle with no safety driver. It would also give competitors hints about where the problematic and difficult to handle areas are, simply by correlating changes in the numbers wi
Title (Score:2)
Waymo Can Keep Robotaxi Safety Details Secret, Court Rules
Fixed that for you.
Well once again (Score:2)
Doesn't do any good to try for small gov't, since corporations will just make their own government with blackjack and hookers. Only forget the hookers. And the blackjacks are these [google.com]
This brings up a related problem (Score:2)
Suppose you have a choice between a self driving vehicle and a car you must drive yourself with no aids. At what level of relative reliability for self driving vehicles compared to owner driven vehicles are you willing to make the switch. Other things being equal logically when the self driving safety record is better than the human driven safety record on a national basis one would pick the self driving if it's record was better.
Humans are not logical despite our desperate claims and wishes to the contrary
The Ted Bundy defense (Score:2)
I can't tell you how many people I've killed: it's a trade secret.