The Latest in IT Security

By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Four major tech companies including Apple and Google have agreed to pay a total of $324 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to hold down salaries in Silicon Valley, sources familiar with the deal said, just weeks before a high profile trial had been scheduled to begin. Tech workers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Inc and Adobe Systems Inc in 2011, alleging they conspired to refrain from soliciting one anothers employees in order to avert a salary war. The case has been closely watched due to the potentially high damages award and the opportunity to peek into the world of Silicon Valleys elite. The case was based largely on emails in which Apples late co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and some of their Silicon Valley rivals hatched plans to avoid poaching each others prized engineers.