81 ms·

Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

933 points by brundolf 6y ago

vorpalhex 6y ago
That headline does not match the article contents. That is definitely the headline from the article, but it simply repeats the claim and doesn't even link to the complaint or provide ANY details. > Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? That sounds like a legit security issue no matter how just her cause. Like it's awesome you're for unionization, but that doesn't mean you get to roll code across the org - what if it had been a bitcoin mining script?
- JeremyBanks 6y ago
  If she had injected a BitCoin miner, for personal profit, that would have been an entirely different situation, wouldn't it?
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Not sure why you are being downvoted. You've (correctly) pointed out that the parent comment has constructed a strawman to punch at, rather than the actual events. Arguments of the form, "Person did X. Imagine if they had done Y! (Where Y is some obviously unethical thing.)" are fallacious and they lead the discussion to useless dead ends. The point is that the person did do X, and NOT Y.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      vorpalhex is stating action X was wrong in the first place, and describing a situation Y as an example to show why action X is wrong. I have policies at my workplace that disallow something because it's impractical to judge every single situation and then have to deal with the gray area.
      - JeremyBanks 6y ago
        That's a fair perspective, but that's not applicable here. The punishment isn't because of how much she violated the policies, it's to send a message. At Google, someone once disruptively modified the root permissions for the entire company-wide monorepo to show off that the permissions scheme was fallible. They were left off with a verbal warning, even though on paper they massively abused their position, and could have made the point without actually doing it. The engineer in the OP took a much smaller action, that was closer to the scope of her actual duties, but was punished more severely.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        vorpalhex 6y ago
        > That's a fair perspective, but that's not applicable here. It's exactly applicable. If you violate say, finance reporting laws (KYC) then you've violated finance reporting laws. If you've added unauthorized code to an internal tool, well, you've added unauthorized code to an internal tool. And had it been part of a security disclosure, well, that might be different (did they try other disclosure avenues?), but pushing a political viewpoint isn't. Imagine instead if the employee had added the message "Trump 2020" - how would you feel about that?
        Jotra7 6y ago
        Saying people have a right to organize is not political speech if you aren't a reactionary.
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      But X is also unethical. Not sure why you're seemingly ignoring that.
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        I'm not. I'm explicitly saying you should discuss X. Adding Y just muddies the discussion.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    Abusing your position as a developer and turning your software into a political soapbox is not much better. People are trying to spin this as some sort of union busting move. I don't see it, this behavior is unacceptable regardless of what message is being spread. Would it have been fine if she added a message to say "Affirmative Action is racist" when people browsed information about Proposition 16 on the 2020 California ballot? Sure, she definitely has the right to spread that message on her own time. But adding this message is definitely breaching expectations of professionalism, and abusing her developer role to spread a personal political message. And given that Google/Alphabet is widely suspected of political bias, I it's fair to let go of employees who cannot refrain from modify software to advance their political views.
    - zobzu 6y ago
      A better way to think of it in my eyes is, employer pays you to write an app that shows cats. You start and you're like, yeah, no fuck that, and you write an app that shows dogs instead. Employer comes back to you and says "we pay you to show cats, since you don't wanna do it we'll find someone else". Sucks but seems logical to me. That's unrelated to the claims of spying and illegal procedures of course, that the new article claims. Very curious to see what they did that was illegal / what kind of spying they would have done. But right now its just claims.
- davidcbc 6y ago
  My recollection is that the extension was for notifying employees of relevant policies and laws regarding websites they were viewing. So no, it was not an unrelated extension.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Isn't the extension actually about the laws or policies related to using the site in question? Not necessarily about laws pertaining to things that happen outside of the use of the site, such as unionizing.
    - saghm 6y ago
      IIRC, the website the notice was added to was specifically a the site of law firm that Google had contracted with regards to the ongoing concerns of unionization. It seems like there's a fair argument to be made that it was related to the site, although there are arguments against that as well.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        But in that case, the notice would fall out of scope of the plugin - which is to notify Google employees of the relevant laws or company policies about the use of a site. This would be about the generic right to unionize, which wouldn't relate to that site specifically. What actions would a user be taking on that site in that capacity, especially if that firm is representing the opposition?
        anonymousDan 6y ago
        She was reminding management (who are also employees) that anti-union stuff is illegal?
        giantg2 6y ago
        Not all anti-union stuff is illegal. Hiring a law firm to consult on employee management and unionization would not be illegal. If anything, they should be learning the correct and legal actions that they can take based on the consultant's recommendations. Not to mention, the comment the plugin displayed wasn't saying anything against illegal actions, but rather stating that concerted activities are protected. I don't see how that has any bearing on the use of a law firm's website.
- 613style 6y ago
  "Injecting code," is not the way I'd describe making changes to a product that it's your job to maintain.
  - annexrichmond 6y ago
    did the change have anything to do with their job? No, so it's basically injecting code.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    (am Googler but obviously not speaking in an official capacity) My understanding from articles I've read is that it wasn't her job to maintain the product. It was her first time interacting with that code base, and she intentionally altered the defaults of the code review tool so that the team responsible for the extension wouldn't be informed of her changes.
- anonacct38 6y ago
  > Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? Depending on your definition of code, that's probably not the case. She added an entry to a config file that contained a mapping of urls to messages. Such as: dropbox.com/upload -> Friendly reminder: please don't upload internal documents to dropbox Also, Google generally trusts engineers and it's not that unusual to have an engineer writing and deploying code. So essentially it was her job to work on and deploy this extension. I believe that had the message been an April fools day joke she wouldn't have been fired. So in my opinion arguments that others have made (not you) that: "this was a unauthorized code change therefore obviously she should be fired on security grounds and charged with violating the CFAA too, it doesn't matter what the message was" don't really hold water. There's also an argument that she used some sort of "emergency" deployment mechanism, but that doesn't really hold water either. Honestly it's not that unusual to see people deploy some package when they need it rather than wait for a scheduled job to deploy it. I think the grey area she was operating in boils down to: She had a platform to distribute certain types of messages internally and she put a message in there that probably wasn't the normal type of message distributed. If I were her manager I probably would have taken some action but it wouldn't have been firing.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    > There's also an argument that she used some sort of "emergency" deployment mechanism, but that doesn't really hold water either. Honestly it's not that unusual to see people deploy some package when they need it rather than wait for a scheduled job to deploy it. I disagree. The emergency process was highly unusual, in that it had never been done before for this extension, and was very rarely done in general. Triggering a deploy is normal, triggering a deploy that goes immediately to 100% is not. > essentially it was her job to work on and deploy this extension The extension wasn't something she had previously worked on. > I believe that had the message been an April fools day joke she wouldn't have been fired. I agree, and don't think she should have been fired for this either. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
    - nashashmi 6y ago
      You should read about the conspiracy to kill ie6. The magical access to add stuff and just have fun was what made google a fun place to work at. In this case adding stuff for your own corporate employees didn’t hurt the company’s customers and users. It shouldn’t have resulted in a termination. Had the person put a hate message they would have been terminated or penalized for hate but not for adding insecure code.
- zeckalpha 6y ago
  How was it an unrelated extension?
deleted 6y ago
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JPKab 6y ago
One of the really weird benefits of having His Orangeness as president was that, due to his extremely toxic persona and policies, and the reciprocal hostility to him from the tech sector, he and his administration had no qualms about going after companies like Google. Obviously, he had no integrity or principles about this, and if Google's CEO had "kissed the ring" he'd immediately sing the company's praises, which was emblematic of his culty version of corruption. That being said, my big fear is that the latest incarnation of the Democratic Party establishment is extremely cozy with the SV goliaths. Similar to how the GOP's cozy relationship with fossil fuel industry drives a policy of inaction and denial for environmental regulation, I worry that the Biden administration and DNC apparatus will simply give a pass to these companies for violations of worker rights and individual privacy. A good test would be to see if the Biden administration supports a US adoption of GDPR-like standards.
- Yajirobe 6y ago
  > His Orangeness Please refrain from insults. Nearly half of the voters voted for him. There are plenty of his supporters here and this is offensive to them.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Half the nation may have voted for him but referring to the orange man in a way that does not also signal that you disapprove is a one way ticket to down-votes on the orange website. It's a really fine line to walk for those who are inclined to do so.
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    What? Are you suggesting we cannot criticize politicians on this website because it might be insulting to their supporters?
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      This is very obviously NOT what they are suggesting. They are suggesting you should "Please refrain from insults", as is clearly stated in their comment. Insult != Criticism.
macspoofing 6y ago
>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Fuck what she used the tool for. At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you.
  - VikingCoder 6y ago
    This was an internal tool. How will a regression in that be "highly embarrassing ... to the company"?
    - neura 6y ago
      Wait, how was this literal incident not highly embarrassing to the company? "Our internal security team has been known to put up unapproved messages in popups that only apply to specific partners/vendors". Doesn't even matter what the content was in that context. When you do consider the content/context, then we need to consider that this vendor/partner (IRI) was likely offended by the implications and the relationship between Google and the vendor/partner was likely damaged. IRI did the right thing in not publicly commenting on the issue, though, so we'll never know for sure what actual affect this incident had on that relationship.
      - VikingCoder 6y ago
        The argument was "At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you." That is a bad argument in this case, because a regression in an internal tool is not going to be "highly embarrassing to both the company and you." This was not a "regression" in any sense. I welcome any other argument on this topic. But the argument presented had a flaw that I was pointing out.
secondcoming 6y ago
> Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. What does this mean? Was this for an IRI portal on Google's intranet, or did they display the pop-up if the public website was being visited by a Google employee? How was it determined that the visitor was a Google employee?
- isaaccp 6y ago
  See this comment that explains the kind of config Kathryn changed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25279578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25279578
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  It's a Chrome extension deployed to Chrome browsers on Google-corporate machines. So when they visit certain Internet sites, they see messages Google wants to remind employees while they are on those sites.
ditonal 6y ago
One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google views it as a right to rootkit your phone, view all your private messages, etc. I learned this the hard way. Whether this is ethical, or legal, I don't know, but it's one of those things that seem obvious to some and not obvious to others. If your employer expects you to use a mobile device at work, have them pay for your phone and only use it for work purposes, assume that HR can view EVERYTHING on your phone, because they can, especially at a company like Google that has both deep mobile expertise and insane paranoia around things like IP protection and stopping whistleblowers.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pmiller2 6y ago
  This is exactly why I don't even have my work email on my personal phone.
- janesvilleseo 6y ago
  100% agree. People laugh at me why I carry two phones but this is the main reason. If my employer needs me to have a mobile phone they are paying for separate device and plan. It’s a little silly I need to carry 2 phones around but it makes my life so much more convenient. Unknown call on my work phone guess I’ll answer. If it’s on my personal then it’s spam. Leave company, no need to update or port my number. Want to go on vacation and still have my phone but not be bothered by company emails and calls. Leave my work phone at home.
  - cooljacob204 6y ago
    With android work profiles I don't think it's that big a deal. It's isolated from my phone, my employer can't see anything outside the profile and I just disable it on weekends/vacations.
m1117 6y ago
Great title, makes me want to be biased when I read the article.
dub 6y ago
It seems like the NLRB is alleging that it is or should be illegal to have a policy against employees spying on each other for non-business reasons at work and using company tools?
- dub 6y ago
  It's interesting that someone found my summary of the article threatening enough that they wanted to vote it down. For context, here's a direct quote from the article describing what the complaint is: "NLRB has found Google’s policy against employees looking at certain coworkers’ calendars is unlawful"
jordache 6y ago
Man! What did she expect, treading into unionization topics on company systems?
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  "What did they expect" is a knee-jerk response to a lot of things that completely avoids thinking about who is responsible for what. I suspect you meant it sarcastically, here, but a lot of people don't. I think it leads to a sort of moral degradation, where wrongdoing is "expected" or "normal" and so not worth pushing back against.
- YokoZar 6y ago
  She probably expected her legal rights under the National Labor Relations Act to be protected, as Google has been punished by the NLRB on many occasions, including having to issue a notice to all employees notifying them of these legal rights. This finding by the NLRB is that Google has yet again violated those rights.
nathias 6y ago
The best time to break up Google was 15 years ago, the second best time is now.
tbodt 6y ago
Anyone have a link to the original NLRB filing that is presumably the source for this article?
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  I think it was acquired by media ahead of time.. they say the complaint will be released today
throwsofaraway 6y ago
We all keep saying "she" to refer to Kathryn Spiers. Spiers is a trans person. I think it's relevant to mention this as a fact, as I find it misleading (my personal belief) to keep referring to Spiers as "she" in HN comments. I think some commenters wouldn't have done so if they were aware that Spiers is a trans person. Not a big deal, of course, but I know this type of factual information gets censored out quite a lot, so I just wanted to shine some light on it.
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  Really? You're gonna go there? The fact you made a throwaway for this tells me you know exactly that this has no bearing whatsoever on the case. If it did, it would just add to the scandal.
  - throwsofaraway 6y ago
    This is currently in the "court" of public opinion, so how can you so definitively say it has no bearing on it whatsoever?
    - black_puppydog 6y ago
      Because the court of public opinion has no bearing on the legal courts. Again, if it did: bad. Sorry, not gonna engage further. Still haven't seen how this is relevant. Have fun trolling.
- CadellFastro 6y ago
  Well Kathryn is a she. The fact that she is trans is entirely irrelevant to the story. It is not misleading to refer to her as "she," as that is her gender.
  - throwsofaraway 6y ago
    I'm just stating a fact that is true about Spiers. It's up to the people who read the story to decide if it's relevant or not, why should you be the judge of that?
ChuckMcM 6y ago
True story, a person I know who was offered a job at Google got the employment agreement (prior to arriving which was pretty standard at the time) and read that bit about "allowing Google to protect it's IP by installing a rootkit" and they red lined it to change it "May only access Google related information and no personal information." When they showed up HR started with "But that isn't how we use it, we would never access your personal data." To which this person said, "Great then we're agreed, all this does is make that limitation explicit.", To which HR said, "But we don't have a changed agreement", the person responded "Here is the agreement red-lined and clear, this is the only change, feel free to have legal review it." The day proceeded until the point in the normal on-boarding process where your "mentor" would pick you up. No mentor, no employment agreement back from HR yet. Two hours later HR came back, asked for all the equipment and the badge to be returned and said, "We're sorry Google has decided we do not wish to proceed with your hire. Thanks." I was pretty amazed by that.
- jedberg 6y ago
  I'm not. Legal doesn't want to deal with everyone having a different employment contract. Google has always leaned towards being ok with a ton of false negatives to avoid false positives. They'd rather give up 10 good hires than make one bad one. This is just an extension of that. They don't want any exceptions and they aren't willing to make any.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      I have no idea how those contracts are enforceable. Quit your job, move across the country and then on your first day here are nine contracts to sign, no you can't take them home we need them now. If you don't sign you are unemployed and we want that relocation money back. I used to ask potential employers when I got deep into interviews with them. "Is there any way I can see all the contracts I would need to sign on my first day?" and my experience is employers are very taken aback the question. How can you possibly talk remuneration when there also is some hidden contract that is part of it that you can't see until your first day?
desireco42 6y ago
It is super convenient to have work stuff with you all the time. So you can step out and be available. Google work profiles solve this for me. I deal with sensitive information anyway. So it is separated so much that it is hard to even share links with colleagues but once you switch to work profile on Android phone (OnePlus FTW!) it works well. I am surprised this is issue in Google.
- Teknoman117 6y ago
  I'm very curious if the work profiles are as containerized as they are advertised as.
jayd16 6y ago
"Spiers" getting "spied on" makes for an ironic and confusing read.
syntaxing 6y ago
What's even crazier is that I have coworkers (that are paid very well) that install the "management" software on their personal phones so that they get the cellphone stipend. The other option is to get a work phone but then they'll miss out on the money...Blows my mind why they would allows their employer to install spyware on their phone for a couple hundred dollars extra a year.
black_puppydog 6y ago
The whole thread here seems to revolve around whether or not Spiers should have been fired for what she did. And while I have a clear opinion on that and had fun sparring with y'all here about it, can we also talk about how unionization is actually something that we need to think about as a profession / group of professions? The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past. Open source frameworks and industry standards, while certainly excellent from a standpoint of work de-duplication and stability, have made it much easier (at least for bigger corps) to replace engineers, or to simply hire someone who's cheaper and less likely to make trouble (read: people more vulnerable to exploitation). There are certainly still exceptions to this, and there will continue to be. For example, the mythical 10x people among you will never have to worry about this, because they're simply that good. Or if you happen to be working on rust for a year before it breaks into the mainstream, then you'll have a head start for a while. But don't expect that to last. Overall: we will either realize and act on the fact that we are now for the most part a skilled labor like any other, or we will see our precious privileges erode and our incomes and work conditions deteriorate. And like it or not, but for many among us who are not "the gift of god to coding" the rational strategy will be to not fight on our own. To bring this back to the current case: the NLRB decided that Spiers got illegally spied on. Whatever your take on her actions before that: illegal stays illegal, and as such don't blame her for it "because she had it coming." Blame google, for blatantly pushing against workers knowing and demanding their rights. If you see what they did here, and the context of this whole story, can you really take their argument at face value that she got fired for misappropriating company property or some such? Doesn't it seem much more likely that they simply made an example of her for informing her co-workers of their rights?
- twblalock 6y ago
  > The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past. Are you kidding? Salaries have never been higher in tech. Senior engineers make more than $400k (sometimes way more) at Google and other large companies. It is likely that engineers at FAANG companies would make less money if they join a union, because the union would level people out by negotiating a standard salary for workers at similar levels at all companies. I haven't seen anyone refute this.
Asooka 6y ago
We are in general long overdue for an overhaul of how corporations are run. The current model of hierarchical decision making and control parallels the monarchies and tyrannies of old. The worker is asked to be a corporate robot for 8 hours every day - think only corporate thoughts, perform only corporate actions. Except "corporate" here is defined as "whatever the people above in the hierarchy say". There is little fairness and justice inherent in such a system - the worker's productivity enriches the corporation without the worker having a say in how their contributions should be used. The alternative is a democratically-run corporation, one in which everyone has a stake and can influence the direction of, e.g. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117729012338178557 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117729012338178557 . In an ideal world this model would be partly enforced by law and employees' speech regarding company politics would be as protected as their political speech in public. Yes, right now a wise CEO would listen to their employees like how a wise ruler listens to their subjects, but there is no requirement for that. Tyranny is not only allowed, but rewarded and employees' only recourse is leaving one life of serfdom for another. Obviously, the current situation is better than what it used to be, but corporations are still entirely structured for the enrichment of the ruling class at the expense of the working class. We can do better, maybe. Even this very comment I am writing, I would not dare to write under my real name for fear of retribution. I am extremely thankful for the somewhat obscuring nature of pseudonymous internet communications, but the fact that I can only voice my thoughts in this format is somewhat of a problem itself.
makach 6y ago
I used to hold Google in the highest esteem, definitively cracks in the wall. Is "don't be evil" still the company motto?
madrox 6y ago
This headline is super confusing. I interpreted it as meaning Google spied on people and then fired them. However, what the article itself seems to be saying is that Google fired people for spying on others. The spying was, "for reviewing other employees’ calendars." The NLRB then found that illegal. At least, that's how I'm interpreting this article. Otherwise there's no actual explanation of what spying actually occurred.
- smeyer 6y ago
  >Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint to be filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today. This part of the article seems pretty clear. It also sounds like one of the fired employees did something involving looking at other people's calendars, but that the core reason that they were fired was for union-related activities.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- smartician 6y ago
  But in order for Google to catch people spying on other people by viewing their calendars, Google would have to surveil the activity of the people doing the spying. Maybe that's what the headline is referring to, but the article doesn't spell that out explicitly (which makes it a very poor piece of journalism in my opinion).
knorker 6y ago
What exactly did Google do? I can't find it. Do note that one of the fired people installed an web interceptor onto all employee browsers, injecting content when certain websites were visited. Basically installed malware in the workplace. I cannot think of anything less ethical to do when gives such access. If they were my coworker I would never be able to trust them with access to anything ever again. To abuse such huge power for something so obviously ineffective and will-obviously-get-you-fired also shows a great lack of judgement. It was, bluntly, fucking stupid.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  The story of what they did gets more ridiculous with every retelling.
- drewbug01 6y ago
  This isn’t really what happened, you know. I think this is the “game of telephone” effect in action. It was a configuration change to an extension already installed by google onto employee computers. Hardly injecting malware.
  - knorker 6y ago
    I know. I think what I said is a fair description. I boggles the mind how someone could think this is ethical, and can defend this.
    - drewbug01 6y ago
      What boggles the mind is how you can think that's a fair description. I stated to you that it wasn't malware, and you said "I know." How can it possibly be fair to paint something as malware if you "know" it wasn't? It's not even "like" malware - the whole point of the software was to inject notices that Google wanted its employees to see when they visited sites. That's the whole reason it exists! Calling it "basically [...] malware" paints it as evil and bad by association, completely overlooking the fact that Google itself wanted that extension installed and the only thing done here was add another site to the list of sites that got a pop-up. If you don't agree with what was done, fine. But don't call it a "fair description"; it's not remotely fair.
theptip 6y ago
I'm confused, what exactly is the allegation of illegal spying? The article just says: > Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint to be filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today. And then talks about the circumstances around the firing of those employees. > “This week the NLRB issued a complaint on my behalf. They found that I was illegally terminated for trying to help my colleagues,” Spiers said. This also doesn't refer to spying. Is this title/article just clickbait or is there any substantiation or further information around the "spied on workers" claim? I've done a quick bit of reading on other news sites and can't find any mention of spying elsewhere.
- ma2rten 6y ago
  One of those people was fired for looking at someone's calendar.
  - theptip 6y ago
    So the claim is that Google looking at its access logs constitutes illegal spying? I'd like to see that claim fleshed out a bit more, I can see where this could be considered problematic to a non-technical person, but it's also common-place for most large companies (or small tech companies) to have internal tools that log employees' behavior.
- thw0rted 6y ago
  I also didn't understand, because the article doesn't actually mention Google's "spying" or explain it at all. It does link to the NLRB complaint, though. It's a real slog to read through but I think the actual salient points are: * Management "viewed an employee slide production in support of the union drive" (§7), no details but I'd assume that they somehow accessed it without an invitation? * The firing was nominally because the employee looked at another employee's calendar, but the claim is that this rule is selectively enforced (§11b) So the only "spying" I can figure out is if, say, one of the claimants made a Google Slides presentation about the union, then one of their bosses went poking around in the employee's Drive (?) and reading their presentations without explicit permission. If the boss abused privileged access to read what was supposed to be a "private" document, I could see how that's illegal "spying". (Although, hey, maybe don't use your employer's software to make your union presentation?)
intricatedetail 6y ago
If company wants to have your time outside work then should they pay for 24h instead of just 9-5? I find it fascinating that employees are okay with it. After 5 it shouldn't be employer business what employee do. Some even forbid you from having a second job.
pengaru 6y ago
Always maintain a strict separation of employer and non-employer related computing. That includes your smartphone, laptop, desktop, don't cross the streams. You're just opening yourself up to all sorts of potential problems when you break this simple rule.
DenisM 6y ago
So the workers could organize and rise up an arms about such tactics, except that they are spending all their protest energy being up in arms about naming conventions of internal tools. Cui bono?
base3 6y ago
When I was hired by Microsoft in 2001, I crossed out and changed language in the documents I was required to sign. Nobody said a word. I suspect nobody looked at the originals.
perryizgr8 6y ago
If I intentionally used my discretion as a developer to check in code that works against my employer, I'd be fired faster than you could say "unionization". I think it is a credible goal to inform people about their rights, but there has got to be a better way.
sitkack 6y ago
Wonderbar!
bg24 6y ago
Curious what comes first: actual spying to find out whom to fire vs. finding all information on an employee who is on the firing list? I think it is the later. And collecting information (through IT) gets them to all the browsing information on the phone. Another aspect is getting caught in an IT system triggered alert. Typically being non-compliant with company sensitive information. This is not only at Google, but most big companies. Hence I am curious.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
As an aside, I really dislike this pattern of deliberately misleading headline. Make it appear that you're asserting a point of fact, Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, knowing that's how the reader will read it, then modify it at the last minute to dial down your commitment to the claim, with US labor board alleges. You'd never use this structure in conversation, you'd just say it the natural way, US labor board alleges Google illegally spied on workers before firing them. Unfortunately even the BBC uses this style sometimes.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  Speak of the devil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25290009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25290009
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dpumpshitlord 6y ago
Anyone else notice the language in statements from companies like this sound like something you'd expect to hear from the government? Give me a break. Its ironic that a company built on top of orchestrating value where there is none elicits the same tactics in every other aspect of their existence. Im afraid regulatory capture will not be coming however, broh

933 points by brundolf 6y ago

That headline does not match the article contents. That is definitely the headline from the article, but it simply repeats the claim and doesn't even link to the complaint or provide ANY details. > Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? That sounds like a legit security issue no matter how just her cause. Like it's awesome you're for unionization, but that doesn't mean you get to roll code across the org - what if it had been a bitcoin mining script?

JeremyBanks 6y ago
If she had injected a BitCoin miner, for personal profit, that would have been an entirely different situation, wouldn't it?
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Not sure why you are being downvoted. You've (correctly) pointed out that the parent comment has constructed a strawman to punch at, rather than the actual events. Arguments of the form, "Person did X. Imagine if they had done Y! (Where Y is some obviously unethical thing.)" are fallacious and they lead the discussion to useless dead ends. The point is that the person did do X, and NOT Y.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    vorpalhex is stating action X was wrong in the first place, and describing a situation Y as an example to show why action X is wrong. I have policies at my workplace that disallow something because it's impractical to judge every single situation and then have to deal with the gray area.
    - JeremyBanks 6y ago
      That's a fair perspective, but that's not applicable here. The punishment isn't because of how much she violated the policies, it's to send a message. At Google, someone once disruptively modified the root permissions for the entire company-wide monorepo to show off that the permissions scheme was fallible. They were left off with a verbal warning, even though on paper they massively abused their position, and could have made the point without actually doing it. The engineer in the OP took a much smaller action, that was closer to the scope of her actual duties, but was punished more severely.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - vorpalhex 6y ago
        > That's a fair perspective, but that's not applicable here. It's exactly applicable. If you violate say, finance reporting laws (KYC) then you've violated finance reporting laws. If you've added unauthorized code to an internal tool, well, you've added unauthorized code to an internal tool. And had it been part of a security disclosure, well, that might be different (did they try other disclosure avenues?), but pushing a political viewpoint isn't. Imagine instead if the employee had added the message "Trump 2020" - how would you feel about that?
        Jotra7 6y ago
        Saying people have a right to organize is not political speech if you aren't a reactionary.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    But X is also unethical. Not sure why you're seemingly ignoring that.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      I'm not. I'm explicitly saying you should discuss X. Adding Y just muddies the discussion.
- manfredo 6y ago
  Abusing your position as a developer and turning your software into a political soapbox is not much better. People are trying to spin this as some sort of union busting move. I don't see it, this behavior is unacceptable regardless of what message is being spread. Would it have been fine if she added a message to say "Affirmative Action is racist" when people browsed information about Proposition 16 on the 2020 California ballot? Sure, she definitely has the right to spread that message on her own time. But adding this message is definitely breaching expectations of professionalism, and abusing her developer role to spread a personal political message. And given that Google/Alphabet is widely suspected of political bias, I it's fair to let go of employees who cannot refrain from modify software to advance their political views.
  - zobzu 6y ago
    A better way to think of it in my eyes is, employer pays you to write an app that shows cats. You start and you're like, yeah, no fuck that, and you write an app that shows dogs instead. Employer comes back to you and says "we pay you to show cats, since you don't wanna do it we'll find someone else". Sucks but seems logical to me. That's unrelated to the claims of spying and illegal procedures of course, that the new article claims. Very curious to see what they did that was illegal / what kind of spying they would have done. But right now its just claims.
davidcbc 6y ago
My recollection is that the extension was for notifying employees of relevant policies and laws regarding websites they were viewing. So no, it was not an unrelated extension.
- giantg2 6y ago
  Isn't the extension actually about the laws or policies related to using the site in question? Not necessarily about laws pertaining to things that happen outside of the use of the site, such as unionizing.
  - saghm 6y ago
    IIRC, the website the notice was added to was specifically a the site of law firm that Google had contracted with regards to the ongoing concerns of unionization. It seems like there's a fair argument to be made that it was related to the site, although there are arguments against that as well.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      But in that case, the notice would fall out of scope of the plugin - which is to notify Google employees of the relevant laws or company policies about the use of a site. This would be about the generic right to unionize, which wouldn't relate to that site specifically. What actions would a user be taking on that site in that capacity, especially if that firm is representing the opposition?
      - anonymousDan 6y ago
        She was reminding management (who are also employees) that anti-union stuff is illegal?
        giantg2 6y ago
        Not all anti-union stuff is illegal. Hiring a law firm to consult on employee management and unionization would not be illegal. If anything, they should be learning the correct and legal actions that they can take based on the consultant's recommendations. Not to mention, the comment the plugin displayed wasn't saying anything against illegal actions, but rather stating that concerted activities are protected. I don't see how that has any bearing on the use of a law firm's website.
613style 6y ago
"Injecting code," is not the way I'd describe making changes to a product that it's your job to maintain.
- annexrichmond 6y ago
  did the change have anything to do with their job? No, so it's basically injecting code.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  (am Googler but obviously not speaking in an official capacity) My understanding from articles I've read is that it wasn't her job to maintain the product. It was her first time interacting with that code base, and she intentionally altered the defaults of the code review tool so that the team responsible for the extension wouldn't be informed of her changes.
anonacct38 6y ago
> Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? Depending on your definition of code, that's probably not the case. She added an entry to a config file that contained a mapping of urls to messages. Such as: dropbox.com/upload -> Friendly reminder: please don't upload internal documents to dropbox Also, Google generally trusts engineers and it's not that unusual to have an engineer writing and deploying code. So essentially it was her job to work on and deploy this extension. I believe that had the message been an April fools day joke she wouldn't have been fired. So in my opinion arguments that others have made (not you) that: "this was a unauthorized code change therefore obviously she should be fired on security grounds and charged with violating the CFAA too, it doesn't matter what the message was" don't really hold water. There's also an argument that she used some sort of "emergency" deployment mechanism, but that doesn't really hold water either. Honestly it's not that unusual to see people deploy some package when they need it rather than wait for a scheduled job to deploy it. I think the grey area she was operating in boils down to: She had a platform to distribute certain types of messages internally and she put a message in there that probably wasn't the normal type of message distributed. If I were her manager I probably would have taken some action but it wouldn't have been firing.
- jefftk 6y ago
  > There's also an argument that she used some sort of "emergency" deployment mechanism, but that doesn't really hold water either. Honestly it's not that unusual to see people deploy some package when they need it rather than wait for a scheduled job to deploy it. I disagree. The emergency process was highly unusual, in that it had never been done before for this extension, and was very rarely done in general. Triggering a deploy is normal, triggering a deploy that goes immediately to 100% is not. > essentially it was her job to work on and deploy this extension The extension wasn't something she had previously worked on. > I believe that had the message been an April fools day joke she wouldn't have been fired. I agree, and don't think she should have been fired for this either. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
  - nashashmi 6y ago
    You should read about the conspiracy to kill ie6. The magical access to add stuff and just have fun was what made google a fun place to work at. In this case adding stuff for your own corporate employees didn’t hurt the company’s customers and users. It shouldn’t have resulted in a termination. Had the person put a hate message they would have been terminated or penalized for hate but not for adding insecure code.
zeckalpha 6y ago
How was it an unrelated extension?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

JPKab 6y ago

One of the really weird benefits of having His Orangeness as president was that, due to his extremely toxic persona and policies, and the reciprocal hostility to him from the tech sector, he and his administration had no qualms about going after companies like Google. Obviously, he had no integrity or principles about this, and if Google's CEO had "kissed the ring" he'd immediately sing the company's praises, which was emblematic of his culty version of corruption. That being said, my big fear is that the latest incarnation of the Democratic Party establishment is extremely cozy with the SV goliaths. Similar to how the GOP's cozy relationship with fossil fuel industry drives a policy of inaction and denial for environmental regulation, I worry that the Biden administration and DNC apparatus will simply give a pass to these companies for violations of worker rights and individual privacy. A good test would be to see if the Biden administration supports a US adoption of GDPR-like standards.

Yajirobe 6y ago
> His Orangeness Please refrain from insults. Nearly half of the voters voted for him. There are plenty of his supporters here and this is offensive to them.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Half the nation may have voted for him but referring to the orange man in a way that does not also signal that you disapprove is a one way ticket to down-votes on the orange website. It's a really fine line to walk for those who are inclined to do so.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  What? Are you suggesting we cannot criticize politicians on this website because it might be insulting to their supporters?
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    This is very obviously NOT what they are suggesting. They are suggesting you should "Please refrain from insults", as is clearly stated in their comment. Insult != Criticism.

macspoofing 6y ago

>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?

jimbob45 6y ago
Fuck what she used the tool for. At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you.
- VikingCoder 6y ago
  This was an internal tool. How will a regression in that be "highly embarrassing ... to the company"?
  - neura 6y ago
    Wait, how was this literal incident not highly embarrassing to the company? "Our internal security team has been known to put up unapproved messages in popups that only apply to specific partners/vendors". Doesn't even matter what the content was in that context. When you do consider the content/context, then we need to consider that this vendor/partner (IRI) was likely offended by the implications and the relationship between Google and the vendor/partner was likely damaged. IRI did the right thing in not publicly commenting on the issue, though, so we'll never know for sure what actual affect this incident had on that relationship.
    - VikingCoder 6y ago
      The argument was "At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you." That is a bad argument in this case, because a regression in an internal tool is not going to be "highly embarrassing to both the company and you." This was not a "regression" in any sense. I welcome any other argument on this topic. But the argument presented had a flaw that I was pointing out.

secondcoming 6y ago

> Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. What does this mean? Was this for an IRI portal on Google's intranet, or did they display the pop-up if the public website was being visited by a Google employee? How was it determined that the visitor was a Google employee?

isaaccp 6y ago
See this comment that explains the kind of config Kathryn changed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25279578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25279578
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
It's a Chrome extension deployed to Chrome browsers on Google-corporate machines. So when they visit certain Internet sites, they see messages Google wants to remind employees while they are on those sites.

ditonal 6y ago

One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google views it as a right to rootkit your phone, view all your private messages, etc. I learned this the hard way. Whether this is ethical, or legal, I don't know, but it's one of those things that seem obvious to some and not obvious to others. If your employer expects you to use a mobile device at work, have them pay for your phone and only use it for work purposes, assume that HR can view EVERYTHING on your phone, because they can, especially at a company like Google that has both deep mobile expertise and insane paranoia around things like IP protection and stopping whistleblowers.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pmiller2 6y ago
This is exactly why I don't even have my work email on my personal phone.
janesvilleseo 6y ago
100% agree. People laugh at me why I carry two phones but this is the main reason. If my employer needs me to have a mobile phone they are paying for separate device and plan. It’s a little silly I need to carry 2 phones around but it makes my life so much more convenient. Unknown call on my work phone guess I’ll answer. If it’s on my personal then it’s spam. Leave company, no need to update or port my number. Want to go on vacation and still have my phone but not be bothered by company emails and calls. Leave my work phone at home.
- cooljacob204 6y ago
  With android work profiles I don't think it's that big a deal. It's isolated from my phone, my employer can't see anything outside the profile and I just disable it on weekends/vacations.

m1117 6y ago

Great title, makes me want to be biased when I read the article.

dub 6y ago

It seems like the NLRB is alleging that it is or should be illegal to have a policy against employees spying on each other for non-business reasons at work and using company tools?

dub 6y ago
It's interesting that someone found my summary of the article threatening enough that they wanted to vote it down. For context, here's a direct quote from the article describing what the complaint is: "NLRB has found Google’s policy against employees looking at certain coworkers’ calendars is unlawful"

jordache 6y ago

Man! What did she expect, treading into unionization topics on company systems?

GavinMcG 6y ago
"What did they expect" is a knee-jerk response to a lot of things that completely avoids thinking about who is responsible for what. I suspect you meant it sarcastically, here, but a lot of people don't. I think it leads to a sort of moral degradation, where wrongdoing is "expected" or "normal" and so not worth pushing back against.
YokoZar 6y ago
She probably expected her legal rights under the National Labor Relations Act to be protected, as Google has been punished by the NLRB on many occasions, including having to issue a notice to all employees notifying them of these legal rights. This finding by the NLRB is that Google has yet again violated those rights.

nathias 6y ago

The best time to break up Google was 15 years ago, the second best time is now.

tbodt 6y ago

Anyone have a link to the original NLRB filing that is presumably the source for this article?

whimsicalism 6y ago
I think it was acquired by media ahead of time.. they say the complaint will be released today

throwsofaraway 6y ago

We all keep saying "she" to refer to Kathryn Spiers. Spiers is a trans person. I think it's relevant to mention this as a fact, as I find it misleading (my personal belief) to keep referring to Spiers as "she" in HN comments. I think some commenters wouldn't have done so if they were aware that Spiers is a trans person. Not a big deal, of course, but I know this type of factual information gets censored out quite a lot, so I just wanted to shine some light on it.

black_puppydog 6y ago
Really? You're gonna go there? The fact you made a throwaway for this tells me you know exactly that this has no bearing whatsoever on the case. If it did, it would just add to the scandal.
- throwsofaraway 6y ago
  This is currently in the "court" of public opinion, so how can you so definitively say it has no bearing on it whatsoever?
  - black_puppydog 6y ago
    Because the court of public opinion has no bearing on the legal courts. Again, if it did: bad. Sorry, not gonna engage further. Still haven't seen how this is relevant. Have fun trolling.
CadellFastro 6y ago
Well Kathryn is a she. The fact that she is trans is entirely irrelevant to the story. It is not misleading to refer to her as "she," as that is her gender.
- throwsofaraway 6y ago
  I'm just stating a fact that is true about Spiers. It's up to the people who read the story to decide if it's relevant or not, why should you be the judge of that?

ChuckMcM 6y ago

True story, a person I know who was offered a job at Google got the employment agreement (prior to arriving which was pretty standard at the time) and read that bit about "allowing Google to protect it's IP by installing a rootkit" and they red lined it to change it "May only access Google related information and no personal information." When they showed up HR started with "But that isn't how we use it, we would never access your personal data." To which this person said, "Great then we're agreed, all this does is make that limitation explicit.", To which HR said, "But we don't have a changed agreement", the person responded "Here is the agreement red-lined and clear, this is the only change, feel free to have legal review it." The day proceeded until the point in the normal on-boarding process where your "mentor" would pick you up. No mentor, no employment agreement back from HR yet. Two hours later HR came back, asked for all the equipment and the badge to be returned and said, "We're sorry Google has decided we do not wish to proceed with your hire. Thanks." I was pretty amazed by that.

jedberg 6y ago
I'm not. Legal doesn't want to deal with everyone having a different employment contract. Google has always leaned towards being ok with a ton of false negatives to avoid false positives. They'd rather give up 10 good hires than make one bad one. This is just an extension of that. They don't want any exceptions and they aren't willing to make any.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    I have no idea how those contracts are enforceable. Quit your job, move across the country and then on your first day here are nine contracts to sign, no you can't take them home we need them now. If you don't sign you are unemployed and we want that relocation money back. I used to ask potential employers when I got deep into interviews with them. "Is there any way I can see all the contracts I would need to sign on my first day?" and my experience is employers are very taken aback the question. How can you possibly talk remuneration when there also is some hidden contract that is part of it that you can't see until your first day?

desireco42 6y ago

It is super convenient to have work stuff with you all the time. So you can step out and be available. Google work profiles solve this for me. I deal with sensitive information anyway. So it is separated so much that it is hard to even share links with colleagues but once you switch to work profile on Android phone (OnePlus FTW!) it works well. I am surprised this is issue in Google.

Teknoman117 6y ago
I'm very curious if the work profiles are as containerized as they are advertised as.

jayd16 6y ago

"Spiers" getting "spied on" makes for an ironic and confusing read.

syntaxing 6y ago

What's even crazier is that I have coworkers (that are paid very well) that install the "management" software on their personal phones so that they get the cellphone stipend. The other option is to get a work phone but then they'll miss out on the money...Blows my mind why they would allows their employer to install spyware on their phone for a couple hundred dollars extra a year.

black_puppydog 6y ago

The whole thread here seems to revolve around whether or not Spiers should have been fired for what she did. And while I have a clear opinion on that and had fun sparring with y'all here about it, can we also talk about how unionization is actually something that we need to think about as a profession / group of professions? The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past. Open source frameworks and industry standards, while certainly excellent from a standpoint of work de-duplication and stability, have made it much easier (at least for bigger corps) to replace engineers, or to simply hire someone who's cheaper and less likely to make trouble (read: people more vulnerable to exploitation). There are certainly still exceptions to this, and there will continue to be. For example, the mythical 10x people among you will never have to worry about this, because they're simply that good. Or if you happen to be working on rust for a year before it breaks into the mainstream, then you'll have a head start for a while. But don't expect that to last. Overall: we will either realize and act on the fact that we are now for the most part a skilled labor like any other, or we will see our precious privileges erode and our incomes and work conditions deteriorate. And like it or not, but for many among us who are not "the gift of god to coding" the rational strategy will be to not fight on our own. To bring this back to the current case: the NLRB decided that Spiers got illegally spied on. Whatever your take on her actions before that: illegal stays illegal, and as such don't blame her for it "because she had it coming." Blame google, for blatantly pushing against workers knowing and demanding their rights. If you see what they did here, and the context of this whole story, can you really take their argument at face value that she got fired for misappropriating company property or some such? Doesn't it seem much more likely that they simply made an example of her for informing her co-workers of their rights?

twblalock 6y ago
> The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past. Are you kidding? Salaries have never been higher in tech. Senior engineers make more than $400k (sometimes way more) at Google and other large companies. It is likely that engineers at FAANG companies would make less money if they join a union, because the union would level people out by negotiating a standard salary for workers at similar levels at all companies. I haven't seen anyone refute this.

Asooka 6y ago

We are in general long overdue for an overhaul of how corporations are run. The current model of hierarchical decision making and control parallels the monarchies and tyrannies of old. The worker is asked to be a corporate robot for 8 hours every day - think only corporate thoughts, perform only corporate actions. Except "corporate" here is defined as "whatever the people above in the hierarchy say". There is little fairness and justice inherent in such a system - the worker's productivity enriches the corporation without the worker having a say in how their contributions should be used. The alternative is a democratically-run corporation, one in which everyone has a stake and can influence the direction of, e.g. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117729012338178557 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117729012338178557 . In an ideal world this model would be partly enforced by law and employees' speech regarding company politics would be as protected as their political speech in public. Yes, right now a wise CEO would listen to their employees like how a wise ruler listens to their subjects, but there is no requirement for that. Tyranny is not only allowed, but rewarded and employees' only recourse is leaving one life of serfdom for another. Obviously, the current situation is better than what it used to be, but corporations are still entirely structured for the enrichment of the ruling class at the expense of the working class. We can do better, maybe. Even this very comment I am writing, I would not dare to write under my real name for fear of retribution. I am extremely thankful for the somewhat obscuring nature of pseudonymous internet communications, but the fact that I can only voice my thoughts in this format is somewhat of a problem itself.

makach 6y ago

I used to hold Google in the highest esteem, definitively cracks in the wall. Is "don't be evil" still the company motto?

madrox 6y ago

This headline is super confusing. I interpreted it as meaning Google spied on people and then fired them. However, what the article itself seems to be saying is that Google fired people for spying on others. The spying was, "for reviewing other employees’ calendars." The NLRB then found that illegal. At least, that's how I'm interpreting this article. Otherwise there's no actual explanation of what spying actually occurred.

smeyer 6y ago
>Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint to be filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today. This part of the article seems pretty clear. It also sounds like one of the fired employees did something involving looking at other people's calendars, but that the core reason that they were fired was for union-related activities.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
smartician 6y ago
But in order for Google to catch people spying on other people by viewing their calendars, Google would have to surveil the activity of the people doing the spying. Maybe that's what the headline is referring to, but the article doesn't spell that out explicitly (which makes it a very poor piece of journalism in my opinion).

knorker 6y ago

What exactly did Google do? I can't find it. Do note that one of the fired people installed an web interceptor onto all employee browsers, injecting content when certain websites were visited. Basically installed malware in the workplace. I cannot think of anything less ethical to do when gives such access. If they were my coworker I would never be able to trust them with access to anything ever again. To abuse such huge power for something so obviously ineffective and will-obviously-get-you-fired also shows a great lack of judgement. It was, bluntly, fucking stupid.

whimsicalism 6y ago
The story of what they did gets more ridiculous with every retelling.
drewbug01 6y ago
This isn’t really what happened, you know. I think this is the “game of telephone” effect in action. It was a configuration change to an extension already installed by google onto employee computers. Hardly injecting malware.
- knorker 6y ago
  I know. I think what I said is a fair description. I boggles the mind how someone could think this is ethical, and can defend this.
  - drewbug01 6y ago
    What boggles the mind is how you can think that's a fair description. I stated to you that it wasn't malware, and you said "I know." How can it possibly be fair to paint something as malware if you "know" it wasn't? It's not even "like" malware - the whole point of the software was to inject notices that Google wanted its employees to see when they visited sites. That's the whole reason it exists! Calling it "basically [...] malware" paints it as evil and bad by association, completely overlooking the fact that Google itself wanted that extension installed and the only thing done here was add another site to the list of sites that got a pop-up. If you don't agree with what was done, fine. But don't call it a "fair description"; it's not remotely fair.

theptip 6y ago

I'm confused, what exactly is the allegation of illegal spying? The article just says: > Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint to be filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today. And then talks about the circumstances around the firing of those employees. > “This week the NLRB issued a complaint on my behalf. They found that I was illegally terminated for trying to help my colleagues,” Spiers said. This also doesn't refer to spying. Is this title/article just clickbait or is there any substantiation or further information around the "spied on workers" claim? I've done a quick bit of reading on other news sites and can't find any mention of spying elsewhere.

ma2rten 6y ago
One of those people was fired for looking at someone's calendar.
- theptip 6y ago
  So the claim is that Google looking at its access logs constitutes illegal spying? I'd like to see that claim fleshed out a bit more, I can see where this could be considered problematic to a non-technical person, but it's also common-place for most large companies (or small tech companies) to have internal tools that log employees' behavior.
thw0rted 6y ago
I also didn't understand, because the article doesn't actually mention Google's "spying" or explain it at all. It does link to the NLRB complaint, though. It's a real slog to read through but I think the actual salient points are: * Management "viewed an employee slide production in support of the union drive" (§7), no details but I'd assume that they somehow accessed it without an invitation? * The firing was nominally because the employee looked at another employee's calendar, but the claim is that this rule is selectively enforced (§11b) So the only "spying" I can figure out is if, say, one of the claimants made a Google Slides presentation about the union, then one of their bosses went poking around in the employee's Drive (?) and reading their presentations without explicit permission. If the boss abused privileged access to read what was supposed to be a "private" document, I could see how that's illegal "spying". (Although, hey, maybe don't use your employer's software to make your union presentation?)

intricatedetail 6y ago

If company wants to have your time outside work then should they pay for 24h instead of just 9-5? I find it fascinating that employees are okay with it. After 5 it shouldn't be employer business what employee do. Some even forbid you from having a second job.

pengaru 6y ago

Always maintain a strict separation of employer and non-employer related computing. That includes your smartphone, laptop, desktop, don't cross the streams. You're just opening yourself up to all sorts of potential problems when you break this simple rule.

DenisM 6y ago

So the workers could organize and rise up an arms about such tactics, except that they are spending all their protest energy being up in arms about naming conventions of internal tools. Cui bono?

base3 6y ago

When I was hired by Microsoft in 2001, I crossed out and changed language in the documents I was required to sign. Nobody said a word. I suspect nobody looked at the originals.

perryizgr8 6y ago

If I intentionally used my discretion as a developer to check in code that works against my employer, I'd be fired faster than you could say "unionization". I think it is a credible goal to inform people about their rights, but there has got to be a better way.

sitkack 6y ago

Wonderbar!

bg24 6y ago

Curious what comes first: actual spying to find out whom to fire vs. finding all information on an employee who is on the firing list? I think it is the later. And collecting information (through IT) gets them to all the browsing information on the phone. Another aspect is getting caught in an IT system triggered alert. Typically being non-compliant with company sensitive information. This is not only at Google, but most big companies. Hence I am curious.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

As an aside, I really dislike this pattern of deliberately misleading headline. Make it appear that you're asserting a point of fact, Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, knowing that's how the reader will read it, then modify it at the last minute to dial down your commitment to the claim, with US labor board alleges. You'd never use this structure in conversation, you'd just say it the natural way, US labor board alleges Google illegally spied on workers before firing them. Unfortunately even the BBC uses this style sometimes.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
Speak of the devil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25290009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25290009

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dpumpshitlord 6y ago

Anyone else notice the language in statements from companies like this sound like something you'd expect to hear from the government? Give me a break. Its ironic that a company built on top of orchestrating value where there is none elicits the same tactics in every other aspect of their existence. Im afraid regulatory capture will not be coming however, broh