4 ms·

Google PR confirmed, to a reporter, on record. Not covered by nda. Once you publicly disclose, the nda makes no sense.

by jfoutz 9y ago

DannyBee 9y ago
"Google PR confirmed, to a reporter, on record. Not covered by nda. " Sorry, but no. Pretty much all nda's in the world would disagree with you. Heck, let's just take the first search result for "nda sample" and look at it: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentiality-agreement-nda-33343.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentialit... Stare at clause 2, and you will see that situation would still be covered by NDA. In basically all NDA's, it's about who does it, not about how it's done. (We're assuming #1's requirements were met, as most NDA's also say that. AFAICT, the other people in the room believe #1 was met. Pretty much every presentation by Google ever is stamped Google Confidential and Proprietary)
- jfoutz 9y ago
  i'm not a lawyer and not interested in becoming a lawyer. Ok, i see your point. I'll go ahead and stipulate that the reporter was a super villain, and google was lilly white in their intentions. Google was very lucky their lawyers were not the brain dead morons that went on record with a reporter about confidential information. There are plenty of articles speculating about how +1 would affect search rankings in 2011, which gives quite a bit of room in 2(a). Google was in a position of immense power, and their clown-car approach happened to work out for them. Seriously guys, the trick to fire is banging the rocks together. Do not go on record with a reporter about confidential information. it's PR 101. Just don't do it. Ever. edit This is condescending and harsh. I'm going to leave it, rather than delete it, because i think big G's PR department should have known better. But maybe take the words with some salt.
mirimir 9y ago
If it was "Google PR" that confirmed, speaking to her as a reporter, yes. But it's not entirely clear what "Google's press shop" means. If she spoke with Google staff in her role as a Forbes employee, it arguably wasn't really a public disclosure. Because said Google staff arguably wouldn't have disclosed that information to some random reporter.
- DannyBee 9y ago
  "speaking to her as a reporter, yes. " Under most NDA's, this would not matter. She originally received it as part of her employer. Most NDA's exclude the disclosing party telling you somehow else as a way of it becoming non-confidential. Again, i'll just take the first sample NDA google finds (http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentiality-agreement-nda-33343.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentialit...) " (c) learned by the Receiving Party through legitimate means other than from the Disclosing Party or Disclosing Party's representatives" Google PR telling a reporter a thing is "learned by the Receiving party from the disclosing party", not through another means. There was also no written approval here. Pretty much every NDA i've ever seen (somewhere in the hundreds or thousands) would still cover the situation where PR confirmed something to someone that they had learned in an NDA'd situation. Whether reporters respect these NDA's or not is another story. But this isn't even a close call. I think you'd struggle to find an NDA this wouldn't be a violation of.
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    Since when did we in the US start caring about technical matters over whats right? A huge portion have always supported disclosure by journalists even when such disclosure represents an obvious violation of the law. In short please pardon my language. Fuck the law.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    OK, thanks. It's the two-hat aspect that keeps confusing me. If, for example, some random reporter, not covered by the NDA, had infiltrated the Forbes-Google meeting, they could have reported it. But the Forbes employee can't escape the NDA by changing hats.
  - mjw1007 9y ago
    You're a Google lawyer, right? People are angry with Google for abusing their power as a search engine to prevent journalists publishing true negative stories about Google. I don't think people are going to be less angry after you explain that Google are doing this via the "clever hack" of informing the news site's SEO team about the negative story under NDA and using that to bind the site's journalists.
acoard 9y ago
>Google PR confirmed Confirming confidential information something to someone under NDA doesn't violate the NDA. >to a reporter One's occupation has nothing to do with the legality or enforceability of an NDA. > on record. This is not a legal term, and has no legal value, but a practice in journalism. A journalist can publish things "off the record," it's fully legal it's just a way to ruin their reputation. >Once you publicly disclose, the nda makes no sense. Every serious NDA I've signed (dozens of them) has had a clause which basically says, "Once it becomes public it's no longer covered by this NDA." However, Google didn't make the information public. They were talking to an employee of a business they have an NDA with (an employee which I'm sure has signed an NDA with Forbes and an agreement to honour all of Forbes' NDAs). Again, it's completely irrelevant that they're a reporter - as it should be. Could you imagine if Bezos/Amazon could violate any NDA they wanted as long as they passed the information onto a Washington Post reporter first? From the perspective of them being an employee of a company under NDA, this is clear as day.

Google PR confirmed, to a reporter, on record. Not covered by nda. Once you publicly disclose, the nda makes no sense.

by jfoutz 9y ago

Google PR confirmed, to a reporter, on record. Not covered by nda. Once you publicly disclose, the nda makes no sense.

"Google PR confirmed, to a reporter, on record. Not covered by nda. " Sorry, but no. Pretty much all nda's in the world would disagree with you. Heck, let's just take the first search result for "nda sample" and look at it: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentiality-agreement-nda-33343.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentialit... Stare at clause 2, and you will see that situation would still be covered by NDA. In basically all NDA's, it's about who does it, not about how it's done. (We're assuming #1's requirements were met, as most NDA's also say that. AFAICT, the other people in the room believe #1 was met. Pretty much every presentation by Google ever is stamped Google Confidential and Proprietary)

jfoutz 9y ago
i'm not a lawyer and not interested in becoming a lawyer. Ok, i see your point. I'll go ahead and stipulate that the reporter was a super villain, and google was lilly white in their intentions. Google was very lucky their lawyers were not the brain dead morons that went on record with a reporter about confidential information. There are plenty of articles speculating about how +1 would affect search rankings in 2011, which gives quite a bit of room in 2(a). Google was in a position of immense power, and their clown-car approach happened to work out for them. Seriously guys, the trick to fire is banging the rocks together. Do not go on record with a reporter about confidential information. it's PR 101. Just don't do it. Ever. edit This is condescending and harsh. I'm going to leave it, rather than delete it, because i think big G's PR department should have known better. But maybe take the words with some salt.

mirimir 9y ago

If it was "Google PR" that confirmed, speaking to her as a reporter, yes. But it's not entirely clear what "Google's press shop" means. If she spoke with Google staff in her role as a Forbes employee, it arguably wasn't really a public disclosure. Because said Google staff arguably wouldn't have disclosed that information to some random reporter.

DannyBee 9y ago
"speaking to her as a reporter, yes. " Under most NDA's, this would not matter. She originally received it as part of her employer. Most NDA's exclude the disclosing party telling you somehow else as a way of it becoming non-confidential. Again, i'll just take the first sample NDA google finds (http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentiality-agreement-nda-33343.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sample-confidentialit...) " (c) learned by the Receiving Party through legitimate means other than from the Disclosing Party or Disclosing Party's representatives" Google PR telling a reporter a thing is "learned by the Receiving party from the disclosing party", not through another means. There was also no written approval here. Pretty much every NDA i've ever seen (somewhere in the hundreds or thousands) would still cover the situation where PR confirmed something to someone that they had learned in an NDA'd situation. Whether reporters respect these NDA's or not is another story. But this isn't even a close call. I think you'd struggle to find an NDA this wouldn't be a violation of.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  Since when did we in the US start caring about technical matters over whats right? A huge portion have always supported disclosure by journalists even when such disclosure represents an obvious violation of the law. In short please pardon my language. Fuck the law.
- mirimir 9y ago
  OK, thanks. It's the two-hat aspect that keeps confusing me. If, for example, some random reporter, not covered by the NDA, had infiltrated the Forbes-Google meeting, they could have reported it. But the Forbes employee can't escape the NDA by changing hats.
- mjw1007 9y ago
  You're a Google lawyer, right? People are angry with Google for abusing their power as a search engine to prevent journalists publishing true negative stories about Google. I don't think people are going to be less angry after you explain that Google are doing this via the "clever hack" of informing the news site's SEO team about the negative story under NDA and using that to bind the site's journalists.

acoard 9y ago

>Google PR confirmed Confirming confidential information something to someone under NDA doesn't violate the NDA. >to a reporter One's occupation has nothing to do with the legality or enforceability of an NDA. > on record. This is not a legal term, and has no legal value, but a practice in journalism. A journalist can publish things "off the record," it's fully legal it's just a way to ruin their reputation. >Once you publicly disclose, the nda makes no sense. Every serious NDA I've signed (dozens of them) has had a clause which basically says, "Once it becomes public it's no longer covered by this NDA." However, Google didn't make the information public. They were talking to an employee of a business they have an NDA with (an employee which I'm sure has signed an NDA with Forbes and an agreement to honour all of Forbes' NDAs). Again, it's completely irrelevant that they're a reporter - as it should be. Could you imagine if Bezos/Amazon could violate any NDA they wanted as long as they passed the information onto a Washington Post reporter first? From the perspective of them being an employee of a company under NDA, this is clear as day.