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If you get hired for many companies, they'll do a background check. Would you consider that overreach? And how is this any different? From my perspective, they
by morley 10y ago
If you get hired for many companies, they'll do a background check. Would you consider that overreach? And how is this any different?
From my perspective, they're hiring someone to have access to their codebase; release their code to millions of users; and spend most of the day next to other people. Hiring is already a blunt tool for finding out if someone can do the work, much less interact well with others. As long as the information isn't completely unrelated to their job function, and it's not discriminatory, it seems reasonable to use all the information at your disposal to reduce that risk.
- doktrin 10y ago> If you get hired for many companies, they'll do a background check. Would you consider that overreach? And how is this any different? > As long as the information isn't completely unrelated to their job function, and it's not discriminatory, it seems reasonable to use all the information at your disposal to reduce that risk. Does it seem reasonable for Google to analyze the personal email accounts of their employees? If not, how is that any different from what's being discussed here?
- scott_s 10y agoEmail accounts have an expectation of privacy, since they are person-to-person communication. In-game chat on public servers does not have an expectation of privacy, since it's public to all connected.
- doktrin 10y agoBy this reasoning, isn't email also "public" to all recipients? Does Google Hangouts not have an expectation of privacy, since it's fundamentally no different from chat on a game server?
- scott_s 10y agoYou have control over who you email or invite to a Hangout. You do not have control over who you connect with in an online game. You're trying to reason this through from a technology perspective, which is not how others are thinking about it. What matters more is the perception, not the software that makes it happen. We think of Gchat, email and hangouts as private communication. But playing an online game is more like being in a public space, so we have less expectation of privacy. Online games already have mechanisms for reporting toxic players, so you know going in: someone else may look at what I said.
- doktrin 10y agoGenuine question : isn't there a more objective standard to be appealed to than perception? Is that really the only thing that's stopping Google from snooping through their own employees private emails, or from reselling them to the highest bidder?
- carlmcqueen 10y agoDepends on the job actually, I'm licensed in the financial industry so my emails are all public record to the company compliance department.
- doktrin 10y agoWork email, personal email, or both?
- carlmcqueen 10y agoWork email actively, with an active complaint it can stem to personal email.
- doktrin 10y ago> Work email actively, with an active complaint it can stem to personal email. I think this is pretty dissimilar from the hypothetical I raised, that being screening the personal email of all potential hires.