Technology

Google Files Suit Against Interior Department

ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿ï»¿ Google has filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department in an attempt to prevent the agency from going ahead with ...

Federal News Network Staff

November 23, 2010 3:14 pm

1 min read

Google has filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department in an attempt to prevent the agency from going ahead with bid requests to host a cloud-based electronic messaging system.

According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Google says they met with Interior Department officials on several occasions asking them to consider them and their “cost saving benefits” and assure them that Google’s applications could care for the agency’s needs.

Google maintains that the Interior Department’s request for quotations was written to prevent the company from competing because it required the system to include the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite.

In April of 2010 – after a year of communicating with the Interior Department about competing for the contract – Google says they were informed by Interior Department Chief Technology Officer William Corrington that a “path forward had already been chosen” for the service, and that there was no opportunity for Google to compete because it did not comply with Interior Department security requirements, according to the lawsuit.

The contract is estimated to pay $59 million over five years.

Google filed the lawsuit with its partner Onix Networking on Oct. 29.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google and Microsoft are also competing for a contract to consolidate and modernize email at the General Services Administration.