A former Waymo executive has admitted to stealing trade secrets and sharing them with Uber, a rival company. The former employee, Anthony Scott Levandowski, has agreed to plead guilty to stealing secret information from the self-driving car technology company Waymo regarding its projects. The former executive is accused of downloading 14,000 files from Waymo and sharing the contents with Uber. The files allegedly contained information regarding Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology that was developed by Waymo.
LiDAR is a mapping technology that uses the reflection of laser beams off objects to create a real-time 3D image of the world and is used in Waymo’s self-driving vehicle technology. Levandowski downloaded 9.7 GB of highly confidential company data from an internal password-protected Google server onto an external hard drive, later uploading the files onto his personal laptop and took them with him when he left Waymo to start his own business, Ottomotto. Ottomotto was acquired by Uber in 2016 for $680 million.
Read More: Former Waymo Executive Passed Trade Secrets to Uber
