7 ms·

The article doesn't mention all of the alleged offenses regarding the lawsuit. There's definitely more than just a "spying program" here: * Restrict the Google

The article doesn't mention all of the alleged offenses regarding the lawsuit. There's definitely more than just a "spying program" here: * Restrict the Googlers’ right to speak, right to work, and right to whistle-blow. * Prohibit Googlers from speaking plainly – even internally – about illegal conduct or dangerous product defects, because such statements might one day be subject to discovery in litigation or sought by the government. * Prohibit Googlers from telling a potential employer how much money they make, or what work they performed, when searching for a different job. * Prohibit Googlers from using or disclosing all of the skills knowledge, acquaintances, and overall experience at Google when working for a new employer. * Prohibit Googlers from speaking to the government, attorneys, or the press about wrongdoing at Google. * The policies even prohibit Googlers from speaking to their spouse or friends about whether they think their boss could do a better job. There were alleged training practices, policies, and documents outlining these offenses and they are written up pretty plainly in the suit itself[1]. Makes for better, more detailed reading, than this Engadget piece. [1] - http://www.bakerlp.com/Google-Blackout-Case/2016-12-19-PAGA-Complaint-Against-Google.pdf http://www.bakerlp.com/Google-Blackout-Case/2016-12-19-PAGA-...

burger_moon 10y ago
A lot of these sound familiar to the Snapchat story from yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13212920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13212920
ndesaulniers 10y ago
"Plaintiff brings this suit as a “Doe” because Brian Katz, Google’s Director of Global Investigations, Intelligen ce & Protective Services, falsel y informed approximately 65,000 Googlers that Plaintiff was terminated for “leaking” certain information to the press. In fact, Plaintiff did not leak the identi fied information to the press an d Katz knew he did not. Rather, Katz and Google used Plaintiff as a very public sc apegoat to ensure that other Googlers continued to comply with Google’s unlawfu l confidentiality policies. "
- parhurs 10y ago
  That's quite the job title. Can someone elucidate what duties come with it?
  - evgen 10y ago
    At large companies like MS, Google, or FB you can roughly divide security into "infosec" and physical security. The latter org will run everything from the door guards and video/badge infra to executive protection services and employee investigations. I am guessing that Mr. Katz runs this org at Google.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Here's at least one of the job duties for Katz: https://www.rt.com/usa/google-bartender-phone-barton-523/ https://www.rt.com/usa/google-bartender-phone-barton-523/
    - joering2 10y ago
      Thanks for sharing. Sound like a total dick. Glad this wasn't a bar in Florida where you can conceal carry. Dude comes to some establishment and threatens employees and owner with criminal prosecution and filing criminal charges, then when they want to return the phone to the police, he would rather have it returned to them... What a dick.
      - kafkaesq 10y ago
        You shouldn't have been downvoted for that comment. According to the Wired article that broke the story (which RT apparently cut-and-pasted from without proper attribution): https://www.wired.com/2012/10/drinking-establishment-check-highly-anticipated-mobile-phone-release-check-lost-phone-check/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/drinking-establishment-check-h... this guy apparently was being an all-out, stereotypical SV dickhead, blatantly threatening a mere bartender (Barton) with criminal charges ("like I was in any trouble", as Barton says) -- just so he could save his own ass back at the Googleplex.
vitus 10y ago
That's interesting, a clause in my contract (pulled up the PDF just now; dated prior to the suit in question) explicitly states that the confidentiality agreement does _not_ apply to my ability to discuss "terms, wages, and working conditions of employment, as protected by applicable law". That certainly contradicts several of those points.
- randomdrake 10y ago
  The suit goes into much more than just a confidentiality agreement. It doesn't allege that only the agreement is the source for those points. The evidence and facts brought up are: 1) A quote from his offer letter. 2) The confidentiality agreement. 3) A Code of Conduct policy for "internal purposes only." 4) Data Classification Guidelines. 6) Employee Communication Policy. 7) Training programs including one called "You Said What?" 8) "Prepare to leave Google" policy. 9) "Exit Certification" note upon termination. 10) A "Global Investigations Team" led by Brian Katz. 11) "Stopleaks." 12) Quotes from all hands meetings. 13) Alleged amendment of a policy in response to his letter to Labor Workforce and Development Agency violations.
  - jasoncheng 10y ago
    14) Literally getting fired for discussing terms, wages, and working conditions of employment 15) Lawyers telling employees to STFU on discussion threads about legal problems in the news
    - oh_sigh 10y ago
      Who got fired for that? We have people who started a spreadsheet where googlers can post their salary/total comp and they are still working at google.
      - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
        The former Googler who started that spreadsheet faced retaliation from management for that spreadsheet, actually. "Former Google employee Erica Baker revealed in a flurry of messages on Twitter Friday that she faced retaliation from management after compiling a spreadsheet of employee salaries." http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/21/ex-google-employee-exposes-unequal-pay-with-spreadsheet/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/21/ex-google-employee-ex...
pravda 10y ago
When they write 'Googlers' in the complaint...it just seems silly. Why not 'Google employees'? Most of those bullet points seem completely reasonable. Google instructs employees in its training programs to do the following: “Don’t send an e-mail that says ‘I think we broke the law’ or ‘I think we violated this contract.’” Yeah, that should be common sense, but there might be some talented yet socially-dumb engineers who need to be explicitly told that. Loose lips sink ships! The only thing I find objectionable is the arbitration clause in the employment contract. That should be made illegal.
- yaps8 10y ago
  The whole point of ethics is to report ‘I think we broke the law’ or ‘I think we violated this contract.’ to your manager (maybe more, depending on the case) and for your own good (protection from prosecution) you should leave papertrails (emails for instance) that you did so. How is it acceptable for a company to encourage employees to hide bad (or illegal) behavior ?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - londons_explore 10y ago
    I think it's more people speculating about another team or project. For example "I bet we'll get boatloads of patent disputes from Samsung if we get the next Nexus phone made by LG", said by someone on the Google search team who is just speculating based on public news reports. Later in court, Samsung could use that as evidence that someone in the company had knowledge of violating patents (which increases damages 3x).
    - cjmcqueen 10y ago
      Yes, this!
    - jonas21 10y ago
      For a more concrete example, a Google engineer said that they should license Java for Android in an email (without having any sort of legal background on whether it was necessary), and this got dragged into court as evidence in the Oracle API copyright case. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/20/oracle-google-trial-engineer-email https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/20/oracle-go...
dunkelheit 10y ago
Access denied for me. Did anybody save the PDF?
- akerro 10y ago
  TADAM https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nd3RB7PhEokJ:www.bakerlp.com/Google-Blackout-Case/2016-12-19-PAGA-Complaint-Against-Google.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nd3RB7...
lostboys67 10y ago
Some of those are just not justiciable "using or disclosing all of the skills knowledge, acquaintances, and overall experience at Google when working for a new employer." is an obvious WTF
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
joering2 10y ago
> * Prohibit Googlers from speaking to the government I have a hard time believing Google lawyers would put something like this in writing for employees to sign...

burger_moon 10y ago

A lot of these sound familiar to the Snapchat story from yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13212920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13212920

ndesaulniers 10y ago

"Plaintiff brings this suit as a “Doe” because Brian Katz, Google’s Director of Global Investigations, Intelligen ce & Protective Services, falsel y informed approximately 65,000 Googlers that Plaintiff was terminated for “leaking” certain information to the press. In fact, Plaintiff did not leak the identi fied information to the press an d Katz knew he did not. Rather, Katz and Google used Plaintiff as a very public sc apegoat to ensure that other Googlers continued to comply with Google’s unlawfu l confidentiality policies. "

parhurs 10y ago
That's quite the job title. Can someone elucidate what duties come with it?
- evgen 10y ago
  At large companies like MS, Google, or FB you can roughly divide security into "infosec" and physical security. The latter org will run everything from the door guards and video/badge infra to executive protection services and employee investigations. I am guessing that Mr. Katz runs this org at Google.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tyingq 10y ago
  Here's at least one of the job duties for Katz: https://www.rt.com/usa/google-bartender-phone-barton-523/ https://www.rt.com/usa/google-bartender-phone-barton-523/
  - joering2 10y ago
    Thanks for sharing. Sound like a total dick. Glad this wasn't a bar in Florida where you can conceal carry. Dude comes to some establishment and threatens employees and owner with criminal prosecution and filing criminal charges, then when they want to return the phone to the police, he would rather have it returned to them... What a dick.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      You shouldn't have been downvoted for that comment. According to the Wired article that broke the story (which RT apparently cut-and-pasted from without proper attribution): https://www.wired.com/2012/10/drinking-establishment-check-highly-anticipated-mobile-phone-release-check-lost-phone-check/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/drinking-establishment-check-h... this guy apparently was being an all-out, stereotypical SV dickhead, blatantly threatening a mere bartender (Barton) with criminal charges ("like I was in any trouble", as Barton says) -- just so he could save his own ass back at the Googleplex.

vitus 10y ago

That's interesting, a clause in my contract (pulled up the PDF just now; dated prior to the suit in question) explicitly states that the confidentiality agreement does _not_ apply to my ability to discuss "terms, wages, and working conditions of employment, as protected by applicable law". That certainly contradicts several of those points.

randomdrake 10y ago
The suit goes into much more than just a confidentiality agreement. It doesn't allege that only the agreement is the source for those points. The evidence and facts brought up are: 1) A quote from his offer letter. 2) The confidentiality agreement. 3) A Code of Conduct policy for "internal purposes only." 4) Data Classification Guidelines. 6) Employee Communication Policy. 7) Training programs including one called "You Said What?" 8) "Prepare to leave Google" policy. 9) "Exit Certification" note upon termination. 10) A "Global Investigations Team" led by Brian Katz. 11) "Stopleaks." 12) Quotes from all hands meetings. 13) Alleged amendment of a policy in response to his letter to Labor Workforce and Development Agency violations.
- jasoncheng 10y ago
  14) Literally getting fired for discussing terms, wages, and working conditions of employment 15) Lawyers telling employees to STFU on discussion threads about legal problems in the news
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    Who got fired for that? We have people who started a spreadsheet where googlers can post their salary/total comp and they are still working at google.
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      The former Googler who started that spreadsheet faced retaliation from management for that spreadsheet, actually. "Former Google employee Erica Baker revealed in a flurry of messages on Twitter Friday that she faced retaliation from management after compiling a spreadsheet of employee salaries." http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/21/ex-google-employee-exposes-unequal-pay-with-spreadsheet/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/21/ex-google-employee-ex...

pravda 10y ago

When they write 'Googlers' in the complaint...it just seems silly. Why not 'Google employees'? Most of those bullet points seem completely reasonable. Google instructs employees in its training programs to do the following: “Don’t send an e-mail that says ‘I think we broke the law’ or ‘I think we violated this contract.’” Yeah, that should be common sense, but there might be some talented yet socially-dumb engineers who need to be explicitly told that. Loose lips sink ships! The only thing I find objectionable is the arbitration clause in the employment contract. That should be made illegal.

yaps8 10y ago
The whole point of ethics is to report ‘I think we broke the law’ or ‘I think we violated this contract.’ to your manager (maybe more, depending on the case) and for your own good (protection from prosecution) you should leave papertrails (emails for instance) that you did so. How is it acceptable for a company to encourage employees to hide bad (or illegal) behavior ?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- londons_explore 10y ago
  I think it's more people speculating about another team or project. For example "I bet we'll get boatloads of patent disputes from Samsung if we get the next Nexus phone made by LG", said by someone on the Google search team who is just speculating based on public news reports. Later in court, Samsung could use that as evidence that someone in the company had knowledge of violating patents (which increases damages 3x).
  - cjmcqueen 10y ago
    Yes, this!
  - jonas21 10y ago
    For a more concrete example, a Google engineer said that they should license Java for Android in an email (without having any sort of legal background on whether it was necessary), and this got dragged into court as evidence in the Oracle API copyright case. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/20/oracle-google-trial-engineer-email https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/20/oracle-go...

dunkelheit 10y ago

Access denied for me. Did anybody save the PDF?

akerro 10y ago
TADAM https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nd3RB7PhEokJ:www.bakerlp.com/Google-Blackout-Case/2016-12-19-PAGA-Complaint-Against-Google.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nd3RB7...

lostboys67 10y ago

Some of those are just not justiciable "using or disclosing all of the skills knowledge, acquaintances, and overall experience at Google when working for a new employer." is an obvious WTF

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

joering2 10y ago

> * Prohibit Googlers from speaking to the government I have a hard time believing Google lawyers would put something like this in writing for employees to sign...