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NDAs and non-compete agreements should not ever be considered as valid contracts by the government.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I think you're painting with a very broad brush there. NDAs and non-competes have their uses. It's when they become part of the default boilerplate that everyone signs to get a job that the problems start.
- AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
  > NDAs and non-competes have their uses I have yet to see a valid use that does not hinder whistle-blowing, the advancement of technology, or does not abuse the employees. I am sure that you will find a few valid use-cases if you try hard enough, however in the vast majority of cases they are used in order to repress the rights of others.
  - navigatesol 7y ago
    >I have yet to see a valid use that does not hinder whistle-blowing The legal system isn't static. If your company is breaking the law and you report it to authorities, your NDA will be unenforceable.
skybrian 7y ago
Some NDA's can be too broad, but this is a bad take. It needs to be possible to hire people that you trust not to disclose all your secrets, and your customer's secrets. This is what privacy regulations are all about. (At Facebook in particular, disclosing stuff about users is pretty bad, see lots of news stories over the last few years.) The balance between protecting privacy and making abuses public is pretty nuanced and doesn't lend itself to one-bit thinking.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  Which privacy regulations protect corporations more than they protect actual meat people?
- dustingetz 7y ago
  > needs to be Nothing needs to be anything, though the world order would certainly look different and reflect the interests of different classes of people than today
  - skybrian 7y ago
    Seems like looking at this from a class perspective only complicates things further?Poor people often have secrets and can be pretty vulnerable to attack if they're disclosed.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    No. But, in the absence of NDAs and other agreements for both employees and external partners, you'd see a great deal more limits on sharing information both within and without companies to a strictly need to know basis. Certainly those limits exist today to a degree because NDAs basically just allow for consequences. But if you can't keep someone from turning around and sharing anything you tell them other than through some sort of mutual trust, you'll be less inclined to share it.
- AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
  > It needs to be possible to hire people that you trust not to disclose all your secrets, and your customer's secrets I disagree, it needs to be possible for whistle-blowers to operate freely. It should also be possible to disclose to the whole world new and superior techniques and technologies that a company tries to hide. > This is what privacy regulations are all about I am pretty sure that this is a separate thing to NDAs. Nevertheless I believe that the solution should be technical rather than legal, with things like end to end encryption and public key cryptography.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >It should also be possible to disclose to the whole world new and superior techniques and technologies that a company tries to hide. Whether or not a company really benefits from this in a particular case, the consequence of prohibiting any legal protections against the broad sharing of company information would be a lot more secrecy and compartmentalization of information.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    That's just wishing the problem away with techno-optimism. When you call someone at a company on the phone to get help, they often need to access your account. If they don't have access to anything, they're mostly useless and you get no help. We're a long way away from making everything self-service and companies not needing to hire anyone to do support. Until all the support people get laid off, they need to be trusted at least to some extent. (Internal controls can be helpful.)
dec0dedab0de 7y ago
If there were no NDAs then companies would exploit patent, trademarks and copywrite even more than they already do. If they kept NDAs limited to trade secrets then there wouldn't be a problem I think Non-competes should be limited to while youre actually working there
- AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
  Companies seem to try to abuse patent, trademarks, and copyrights as much as they can anyway. The best of-course would be if NDAs, patents, and copyrights all disappeared overnight. Trademarks are generally fine but they can be abused.
pjc50 7y ago
NDAs need to be heavily restricted, but it's a difficult distinction to draw between "trade secrets of the job" (which arguably should be protected) and "abusive working conditions" (which should not)
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Honestly why the hell are trade secrets protected expect for misguised sense of intellectual property that forgets the concept was a contract and not a natural right? They don't even have the benefit of disclosure which patents were meant to give - to prevent said knowledge being lost. Trade secrets are why we had to investigate Damascus Steel reproduction throughly and still speculate. They give the useful arts and sciences nothing and yet they get free resources for enforcement. I believe the proper legal response from the state for breach of trade secrets should be "Wow, sucks to be you!" We really shouldn't be promoting that artificial scarcity and restriction of knowledge.
bloak 7y ago
Do any companies use something more like a blackmailer's NDA, which works without a legal system? I'm not sure exactly how it would work, and perhaps it wouldn't work in practice, but I imagine it might involve paying the (former) employee a certain sum every month for their continued cooperation, and the employer would reserve the right to unilaterally cancel the arrangement: it would be "discretionary" or whatever. So the employee has a motive to cooperate (unless they're terminally ill ...) but there's nothing to "enforce".

I think you're painting with a very broad brush there. NDAs and non-competes have their uses. It's when they become part of the default boilerplate that everyone signs to get a job that the problems start.

AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
> NDAs and non-competes have their uses I have yet to see a valid use that does not hinder whistle-blowing, the advancement of technology, or does not abuse the employees. I am sure that you will find a few valid use-cases if you try hard enough, however in the vast majority of cases they are used in order to repress the rights of others.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >I have yet to see a valid use that does not hinder whistle-blowing The legal system isn't static. If your company is breaking the law and you report it to authorities, your NDA will be unenforceable.

skybrian 7y ago

Some NDA's can be too broad, but this is a bad take. It needs to be possible to hire people that you trust not to disclose all your secrets, and your customer's secrets. This is what privacy regulations are all about. (At Facebook in particular, disclosing stuff about users is pretty bad, see lots of news stories over the last few years.) The balance between protecting privacy and making abuses public is pretty nuanced and doesn't lend itself to one-bit thinking.

maxerickson 7y ago
Which privacy regulations protect corporations more than they protect actual meat people?
dustingetz 7y ago
> needs to be Nothing needs to be anything, though the world order would certainly look different and reflect the interests of different classes of people than today
- skybrian 7y ago
  Seems like looking at this from a class perspective only complicates things further?Poor people often have secrets and can be pretty vulnerable to attack if they're disclosed.
- ghaff 7y ago
  No. But, in the absence of NDAs and other agreements for both employees and external partners, you'd see a great deal more limits on sharing information both within and without companies to a strictly need to know basis. Certainly those limits exist today to a degree because NDAs basically just allow for consequences. But if you can't keep someone from turning around and sharing anything you tell them other than through some sort of mutual trust, you'll be less inclined to share it.
AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
> It needs to be possible to hire people that you trust not to disclose all your secrets, and your customer's secrets I disagree, it needs to be possible for whistle-blowers to operate freely. It should also be possible to disclose to the whole world new and superior techniques and technologies that a company tries to hide. > This is what privacy regulations are all about I am pretty sure that this is a separate thing to NDAs. Nevertheless I believe that the solution should be technical rather than legal, with things like end to end encryption and public key cryptography.
- ghaff 7y ago
  >It should also be possible to disclose to the whole world new and superior techniques and technologies that a company tries to hide. Whether or not a company really benefits from this in a particular case, the consequence of prohibiting any legal protections against the broad sharing of company information would be a lot more secrecy and compartmentalization of information.
- skybrian 7y ago
  That's just wishing the problem away with techno-optimism. When you call someone at a company on the phone to get help, they often need to access your account. If they don't have access to anything, they're mostly useless and you get no help. We're a long way away from making everything self-service and companies not needing to hire anyone to do support. Until all the support people get laid off, they need to be trusted at least to some extent. (Internal controls can be helpful.)

dec0dedab0de 7y ago

If there were no NDAs then companies would exploit patent, trademarks and copywrite even more than they already do. If they kept NDAs limited to trade secrets then there wouldn't be a problem I think Non-competes should be limited to while youre actually working there

AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
Companies seem to try to abuse patent, trademarks, and copyrights as much as they can anyway. The best of-course would be if NDAs, patents, and copyrights all disappeared overnight. Trademarks are generally fine but they can be abused.

pjc50 7y ago

NDAs need to be heavily restricted, but it's a difficult distinction to draw between "trade secrets of the job" (which arguably should be protected) and "abusive working conditions" (which should not)

Nasrudith 7y ago
Honestly why the hell are trade secrets protected expect for misguised sense of intellectual property that forgets the concept was a contract and not a natural right? They don't even have the benefit of disclosure which patents were meant to give - to prevent said knowledge being lost. Trade secrets are why we had to investigate Damascus Steel reproduction throughly and still speculate. They give the useful arts and sciences nothing and yet they get free resources for enforcement. I believe the proper legal response from the state for breach of trade secrets should be "Wow, sucks to be you!" We really shouldn't be promoting that artificial scarcity and restriction of knowledge.

bloak 7y ago

Do any companies use something more like a blackmailer's NDA, which works without a legal system? I'm not sure exactly how it would work, and perhaps it wouldn't work in practice, but I imagine it might involve paying the (former) employee a certain sum every month for their continued cooperation, and the employer would reserve the right to unilaterally cancel the arrangement: it would be "discretionary" or whatever. So the employee has a motive to cooperate (unless they're terminally ill ...) but there's nothing to "enforce".