3 ms·

Some commenters on google+ are saying he might have signed a NDA. Isn't that the case?

ChuckMcM 15y ago
Everyone who works at Google signs the "Employee Agreement" which includes, among other things, a blanket NDA. The other parts that it includes are you transfer to Google all rights and ownership in anything you work on while you are employed at Google (during work time or not, on Google supplied equipment or not). And while there is a specific California exemption (since California has wording in its labor law that forbids this sort of blanket grab) there is wording around that exemption even in the agreement which, according to some opinions, attempts to have you give up that protection as well. I had a dispute with them about it, I talked to a lawyer and his advice was pretty simple. He suggested that yes, you could probably litigate it and get your rights back in California, but if you were litigating against the company you were working for, you rarely continued to work for them, so in my case (since I had not yet started on my project) his advice was to quit and then work on it which would make things much clearer for everyone. In Paul's case if he had written permission to publish and then they verbally revoked that permission (which was what he said as I recall), he could probably litigate it successfully. But cost of lawyer vs the expected royalties on an technical book? I think publishing a new book is a better choice.
- gojomo 15y ago
  I'm sure secretive Google has one of the strongest NDAs in the industry, but also: they typically can't cover anything that's publicly known, and Adams describes the contents of the book as a summary of already-published research. So some specific agreement about the book collaboration, rather than the employment NDA, is more likely the source of Google's leverage.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    I can't show it to you because the agreement itself is covered by the NDA, but I can assure you that you are under estimating its reach :-)

Everyone who works at Google signs the "Employee Agreement" which includes, among other things, a blanket NDA. The other parts that it includes are you transfer to Google all rights and ownership in anything you work on while you are employed at Google (during work time or not, on Google supplied equipment or not). And while there is a specific California exemption (since California has wording in its labor law that forbids this sort of blanket grab) there is wording around that exemption even in the agreement which, according to some opinions, attempts to have you give up that protection as well. I had a dispute with them about it, I talked to a lawyer and his advice was pretty simple. He suggested that yes, you could probably litigate it and get your rights back in California, but if you were litigating against the company you were working for, you rarely continued to work for them, so in my case (since I had not yet started on my project) his advice was to quit and then work on it which would make things much clearer for everyone. In Paul's case if he had written permission to publish and then they verbally revoked that permission (which was what he said as I recall), he could probably litigate it successfully. But cost of lawyer vs the expected royalties on an technical book? I think publishing a new book is a better choice.

gojomo 15y ago
I'm sure secretive Google has one of the strongest NDAs in the industry, but also: they typically can't cover anything that's publicly known, and Adams describes the contents of the book as a summary of already-published research. So some specific agreement about the book collaboration, rather than the employment NDA, is more likely the source of Google's leverage.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I can't show it to you because the agreement itself is covered by the NDA, but I can assure you that you are under estimating its reach :-)