Search engine giant Google Inc. (GOOG) is expected to launch as early as Tuesday a new tool that will measure the number of Web hits, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing advertising executives who have had a briefing on it. In a separate report, the journal said that Google has been sued by software startup LimitNone, alleging that Google's tool for migrating employees' email and contact information from Microsoft Office to Google's competing product, Google Apps, copies elements of its own.
The Mountain View, California-based firm's Internet usage tool is planned to help advertisers to buy online advertisements by providing information to help identify those sites most visited by their target audiences.
Quoting the executives, the journal report said Google's move is aimed at boosting its advertisement-sales business. The new step could also create a major threat to the currently available Web measurement services. Online data gatherers comScore Inc. (SCOR) and Nielsen Online has so far been tracking Internet use from what panels of people do online or by conducting surveys. However, the outcome can often be inconsistent and incomplete, the report noted.
The journal added that unlike the comScore and Nielsen modes, Google's new tool would be based mostly on data from Web servers and most probably offered free to the marketers. This method will allow for a deeper and broader view of Internet use. The WSJ said comScore and Nielsen have both declined to comment.
The journal also reported that Google is expected to separately announce the launch of another new tool to track the response of Web surfers to online ads. This tool is expected to compare groups of people exposed or not exposed to the concerned advertisement, and would take into consideration factors like search activity and site visitation.
Meanwhile, LimitNone filed a suit in an Illinois circuit court on Monday, charging the Internet giant of depriving it of about a "$950 million opportunity" by building its "Google Email Uploader" that rivaled LimitNone's similar product called gMove. LimitNone, which no longer offers the product, reportedly stated that it worked on gMove as an authorized Google developer program member.
Google had given prior assurance that it would not seek to build a similar tool, but went ahead and built its Email Uploader, LimitNone noted. LimitNone, in its suit, claims that a Google employee told the firm that the Internet giant felt the opportunity was "just too big to come from someone else."
LimitNone's gMove has not been patented, while its lawyers are seeking to prove that Google stole LimitNone's migration tool instead. Also, the suit is a sign that friction between startups and large companies could escalate as the developer communities around technology giants blooms.
GOOG closed Monday's regular trading at $545.21, down $1.22, on a volume of 3.64 million shares.
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