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This is true, but Google also had very specific guidance around this topic when I worked there (10-5 years ago). We received specific training about this. The c

This is true, but Google also had very specific guidance around this topic when I worked there (10-5 years ago). We received specific training about this. The core message was approximately, "You don't understand the legal trouble that you're going to get yourself into by talking about markets, competitors, competition, etc. Innocent words or phrases may have very specific legal definitions or implications that may be surprising to you. Speculating about these things will bring you trouble, the amount of which which will also surprise you. At Google, we don't talk about ourselves in relationship to our competitors, we only talk about ourselves in relationship to our customers"

adt2bt 6y ago
As someone who just recently joined Google and took a training on this, I can confirm this is still pretty much the gist of the messaging.
brandmeyer 6y ago
To clarify: this covers both internal and external communication. This kind of training is not unique to Google, either. I got very similarly themed training at Eaton (a manufacturing conglomerate). In both cases, I was left with the impression that the employer had been burned in the past due to otherwise-irrelevant employee communication in some lawsuit.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  It's boilerplate advice a corp will get from corp lawyers, who can cite you the specific cases where an employer has been burned in the past due to otherwise-irrelevant employee communication. Here's the trick: In the event a lawsuit goes to discovery, who decides what's in scope to enter evidence? Hint: it's not the corporation. Nor is it the employee who made the (in context, at the time) innocuous statement that used the wrong keywords in a way that can be taken out of context.
bigbubba 6y ago
Is it really true that an employee speculating about the monopolistic nature of their employer might get themselves into legal hot water? If Google got taken down by one of their developers saying 'our employer kind of seems anticompetitive to me...' in an email, would that developer really have anything to fear from the government? It seems like the corporation is protecting itself with this sort of advice.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Depends on how you define legal trouble. Getting hauled in to testify before a judge or Congress would certainly qualify as legal trouble for me. Perhaps not direct legal trouble, but trouble nonetheless.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Correct. Primarily to protect the corporation. Indirectly, to protect the individual employee, because if a lawsuit going south harms the business prospects, the company might have to downsize, cut benefits, cut bonuses, &c.
- jakevoytko 6y ago
  The point they made around this was roughly, "Let's say that the US Government is making a case. If they can argue that you used your personal email, personal phone number, or ANYTHING for work at any point, they're going to subpoena as much of your private communications as possible and find a way to use the most embarrassing stuff to encourage you to cooperate." I left this part out of my other post because I was a little fuzzier on the details of what they said, but this was the gist. Edit: clarity
  - brandmeyer 6y ago
    In typical Google fashion, there is a semi-automated system for taking snapshots of employees' email history and workstation disk images when discovery demands it. The snapshot feature is even sold as part of ~~G Suite~~ Google Workspace under the Vault product. As `shadowgovt` pointed out: Its a judge and the lawyers who get to decide what does and doesn't get covered by the process.
tytso 6y ago
This is boilerplate which you'd also find at other companys as well. In fact, the language was almost identical to what I saw at IBM. General counsels at big companies share "best practices" at their own conferences dedicated for corporate laywers. I've been a guest speaker talking about open source issues at legal conferences where they were talking about best practices for OSS compliance; it's not an accident that many company's OSS policies are very similar. So policies like "require annual, mandatory training for anti-harassment training", and "how to communicate with care", etc., are going to be remarkably similar across companies.

adt2bt 6y ago

As someone who just recently joined Google and took a training on this, I can confirm this is still pretty much the gist of the messaging.

brandmeyer 6y ago

To clarify: this covers both internal and external communication. This kind of training is not unique to Google, either. I got very similarly themed training at Eaton (a manufacturing conglomerate). In both cases, I was left with the impression that the employer had been burned in the past due to otherwise-irrelevant employee communication in some lawsuit.

shadowgovt 6y ago
It's boilerplate advice a corp will get from corp lawyers, who can cite you the specific cases where an employer has been burned in the past due to otherwise-irrelevant employee communication. Here's the trick: In the event a lawsuit goes to discovery, who decides what's in scope to enter evidence? Hint: it's not the corporation. Nor is it the employee who made the (in context, at the time) innocuous statement that used the wrong keywords in a way that can be taken out of context.

bigbubba 6y ago

Is it really true that an employee speculating about the monopolistic nature of their employer might get themselves into legal hot water? If Google got taken down by one of their developers saying 'our employer kind of seems anticompetitive to me...' in an email, would that developer really have anything to fear from the government? It seems like the corporation is protecting itself with this sort of advice.

MattGaiser 6y ago
Depends on how you define legal trouble. Getting hauled in to testify before a judge or Congress would certainly qualify as legal trouble for me. Perhaps not direct legal trouble, but trouble nonetheless.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Correct. Primarily to protect the corporation. Indirectly, to protect the individual employee, because if a lawsuit going south harms the business prospects, the company might have to downsize, cut benefits, cut bonuses, &c.
jakevoytko 6y ago
The point they made around this was roughly, "Let's say that the US Government is making a case. If they can argue that you used your personal email, personal phone number, or ANYTHING for work at any point, they're going to subpoena as much of your private communications as possible and find a way to use the most embarrassing stuff to encourage you to cooperate." I left this part out of my other post because I was a little fuzzier on the details of what they said, but this was the gist. Edit: clarity
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  In typical Google fashion, there is a semi-automated system for taking snapshots of employees' email history and workstation disk images when discovery demands it. The snapshot feature is even sold as part of ~~G Suite~~ Google Workspace under the Vault product. As `shadowgovt` pointed out: Its a judge and the lawyers who get to decide what does and doesn't get covered by the process.

tytso 6y ago

This is boilerplate which you'd also find at other companys as well. In fact, the language was almost identical to what I saw at IBM. General counsels at big companies share "best practices" at their own conferences dedicated for corporate laywers. I've been a guest speaker talking about open source issues at legal conferences where they were talking about best practices for OSS compliance; it's not an accident that many company's OSS policies are very similar. So policies like "require annual, mandatory training for anti-harassment training", and "how to communicate with care", etc., are going to be remarkably similar across companies.