Never Mind

Has U.S. District Court Judge Alsup gone from channeling Toto to channeling Emily Litella?  In my last two blog posts, "Pulling Back The Curtain," Part I and Part II, I wrote about the orders Judge Alsup had entered in the Oracle v. Google lawsuit, demanding the names of any "print or internet authors, journalists, commenters or bloggers" who had been compensated by the parties and written about the case.  Judge Alsup issued an order Tuesday, in which he denied Google's motion for judgment as a matter of law, or in the alternative for a new trial.  Judge Alsup used the order as an "opportunity" to notify the parties that he would "take no further action regarding the subject of payments by the litigants to commenters and journalists." Perhaps Judge Alsup was concerned that by demanding the information, he might have revealed that he closely followed how the case was covered in the media, and realized that a question could be raised asking whether he had been influenced by that coverage.  Therefore, he used the order to state further that he "reassures both sides that no commentary has in any way influenced the court's orders and ruling herein save and except for any treatise or article expressly cited in an order or ruling."  Thus, in the immortal words of Gilda Radner as Ms. Litella: "Never mind."