Judge Alsup held Google's disclosures were insufficient, and clarified in a way that he suggested might result in further disclosures by Oracle. He explained: "the order was designed to bring to light authors whose statements about the issues in the case might have been influenced by the receipt of money." He also wrote: "listing all commenters known by Google to have received payments as consultants, contractors, vendors, or employees. As for organizations receiving money, they need not be listed unless one of its employees was a commenter."
My impression from going through all these orders is that the Judge has seen some smoke, and believes there is fire. Whether that fire is something the judiciary should be concerned with is itself an interesting question. Again, I analogize it to sponsored science, where disclosure by a scientist that he has been paid by X corporation to conduct a study on Y compound, which is made by X corporation, is something that should be disclosed. Arguably, the case is stronger in instances of "soft" information like legal analysis, since, in theory, a scientific article should disclose enough that it could be judged on its own.
The order is here.
There is an article here.
