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> The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague. They're going to have an extremely uphill battle to fight if this is the basis of their legal argument. No r

> The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague. They're going to have an extremely uphill battle to fight if this is the basis of their legal argument. No reasonable person could understand the phrase, "Don't Be Evil," to mean, "Don't do things that I personally consider evil." For example, I very much doubt that a court is going to find that Customs and Border Protection is "evil," and thus any actions the plaintiffs took against Google's dealings with CBP were contractually mandated by the employment agreement. To the extent that this is a headache for Google at all, it will serve as a great example as to why legalese and corporate-speak is so common in the U.S. Google tried to have a motto that, while legally ambiguous, expressed a sentiment about how they wanted to treat their users and act in the marketplace. There will be different opinions about how well Google lives up to the motto, but certainly at the time it was coined, that was the idea behind it. And now they're getting sued, essentially frivolously, over the language. If it causes them a problem, it's a lesson to other companies: avoid mottos that are subject to creative and motivated interpretation during litigation. Or to put it another way, don't have mottos.

mpd 5y ago
> No reasonable person could understand the phrase, "Don't Be Evil," to mean, "Don't do things that I personally consider evil." TBH, I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter. Did you mistype here? Maybe there's even something different about using "evil" here, specifically. Would another word have a different outcome?
- bananabreakfast 5y ago
  No one treats it that way. A reasonable person should understand it not as requesting to make subjective personal judgments but rather as what it clearly was meant as: "Don't be Microsoft"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mpd 5y ago
    Only if said "reasonable person" were around in the 90's, and knew the shit that MS was trying to pull. I happen to be one of those people, but that's not the catch of the day here.
  - Tempest1981 5y ago
    Really? Microsoft never crossed my mind when hearing the motto years ago. I interpreted it more generically as "make the world a better place... by organizing the world's information, and making it easily accessible".
    - native_samples 5y ago
      Lack of history. I worked there and this is correct. The motto originates in the very earliest days of Google when they - like most other software firms - feared Microsoft more than any other company. In particular they feared being locked out of Windows or discouraged via IE defaults, killed the same way Netscape was. This was a big part of the reason for the original Google Toolbar. It was at the height of the Microsoft trial, Gates had been doing a lot of questionable things and there was a general agreement that the company was Bad News. Slashdot's Borg logo dates from this time. Don't be Evil was basically a kind of jokey collective agreement that Google wouldn't become like Microsoft. Of course twenty years later the industry had grown enormously, Microsoft is no longer the big bad wolf, many working people in tech have no recollection of any of this and in America, exist in an ideological pressure cooker that tells them anything that isn't left wing is "evil". So the motto had been lifted out of its very 90s and software specific context to become a stick for perpetual interns to beat people of the wrong political persuasion. If this stupidity actually goes anywhere near a serious court case it wouldn't surprise me if this history gets dug up.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  > TBH, I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter. Did you mistype here? I don't think so. For example, there are religions that consider the lending of money to be evil, but I am quite certain Google did not have in mind that adherents of these religions should leak documents to the press if Google were to offer a credit card. Likewise, Google was not interested in the moral views of its conservative religious employees when it started offering various types of support for LGBTQ people. I think when most people hear, "Don't be evil," they understand it to mean things along the lines of, "Don't be unfair to users, don't act with malice, don't lie, cheat, or steal, etc." I.e. don't do things that are essentially universally considered evil. I do not believe many people interpret that as, "protest every time Google violates your personal moral code, no matter how esoteric or idiosyncratic."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - danielheath 5y ago
    Those things are clearly ~not~ universally seen as evil in the corporate world (and other places, but the corporate world is the relevant area here), given the prevalence of deception & unfair conduct present.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      > Those things are clearly ~not~ universally seen as evil in the corporate world I mean, we're getting pretty deep into the weeds of what we mean by, "seen as evil" or even "evil" at this point. Which is kinda what I was getting at. I think stealing is universally understood to be evil, even in the corporate world, but people will differ on what stealing actually is, or whether a particular act is stealing. A recent example that comes to mind is the Citibank/Revlon situation. I personally thought that was theft by Revlon, but there are a lot of people who see it another way. I understand that Revlon's employees did not view their behavior as evil, even if it seemed bad to me. Nearly everyone is righteous in their own eyes. And adults understand this. That's part of why it's my view that most people will understand Google's former motto to not be inclusive of being an activist against Google's interests, even in morally ambiguous cases, and even after being asked not to. I don't really have any way to convey this more clearly, so I guess we'll have to let time, that great prover of claims, tell. Maybe I'm wrong and the court will hand these people a willion dollars. I don't think so.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  > "I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter" First of all, that's debatable. Even if true, they're wrong.
  - mpd 5y ago
    If your only special move is "You're wrong!", it's going to be hard to talk to you. What do you think is debatable?
- q1w2 5y ago
  The issue is that they used their own interpretation of "don't be evil", even when the company TOLD them that certain things were not evil. The phrase is meant to be a catch-all against policies that are not specified - not a carte-blanche to do whatever the F you want in contradiction of what the company is telling you.
chickenpotpie 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem Ambiguity in a contract benefits the party that did not draft it
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I will be shocked if this principle is sufficient to allow them to win this case. We'll see.
  - pg_1234 5y ago
    Even if they don't win, in a public trial, given the current political attitude to Big Tech, this could cost Google billions just in the discovery process.
    - MagnumOpus 5y ago
      "Billions" is a very large number, even for elite coders or lawyers that's thousands of person years - or tens of thousands for mere mortals. Somehow I doubt that any company would assign ten thousand people for a civil suit discovery...
      - pg_1234 5y ago
        Not directly, but the reputational damage ... and the possibility that national governments might be emboldened to act against Google in tax or privacy domains could knock percentage points off the market cap.
- tehwebguy 5y ago
  Yeah but it's not really a contract, the code of conduct clearly doesn't obligate Google to do anything. It's just a list of basic rules & policies like every other company has, its purpose is to put a bunch of rules in writing and it is signed by new hires so that there's a documented acknowledgement of those policies. That is, a CoC is often the document used when firing someone but is rarely going to help someone keep their job. A company breaking or changing policy is not by definition unlawful or a violation of any employee's rights in the US. There are exceptions to this, but many people would be blown away at the massive leeway companies have (e.g. only ~20 states consider PTO "earned wages", other states have far lower or no PTO protections on termination). That said, their lawsuit isn't really about breach of contract, it's just one of the 5 counts they are trying to establish (the complaint is only 13 pages double spaced, totally worth skimming[0]): COUNT I: BREACH OF CONTRACT - Plaintiffs say they were fired for following the CoC and calling out evil (working with DHS / CBP / ICE) that Google was doing or considering doing. COUNT II: PROMISSORY ESTOPPEL - They would have taken a job elsewhere if they knew "Don't be Evil" wasn't going to be honored and gave up opportunities for no reason since it wasn't. COUNT III: BREACH OF IMPLIED COVENANT OF GOOD FAITH AND FAIR DEALING - Basically the same as count 1 but focused on bad faith by changing the policy. COUNT IV SLANDER/FALSE LIGHT - Plaintiffs say Google slandered them by falsely saying they leaked confidential information. COUNT V: TERMINATION IN VIOLATION OF PUBLIC POLICY - Plaintiffs say they were fired for exercising protected political action and/or for their membership of protected classes. In my opinion the DHS / CBP / ICE child separation policy is pure evil, so is a lot of the incarceration this country[1], but the lawsuit isn't going to come down to the definition of evil so much as it will come down to California employment law. [0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_complaint_filed https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp... [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jaile...
Talanes 5y ago
>Or to put it another way, don't have mottos. Having a motto is fine. Asking your employees to comply with a completely vague and subjective objective in their employment contract is asking for trouble, however.
geofft 5y ago
You can see the whole legal argument - it's linked from the first sentence of the article, and it quotes the relevant section of the employee code of conduct: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_complaint_filed https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp... > “Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information. focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services we can. But it's also about doing the right thing more generally ~ following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect. That is pretty specific. You need to provide users unbiased access to information, focus on their needs, and give them the best products and services you can. You also need to follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect. The courts do in fact understand legally-binding terms to mean something. (See also the fact that IBM's lawyers sought a specific exemption from the JSON license's "The Software shall be used for Good, and not Evil," because they knew there was a chance the courts would find something they did "Evil," because if it's in a contract, it means something.) So what do they mean? Some of these clauses - "giving them the best products and services we can," "acting honorably," etc. - are a little squishy. But "providing our users unbiased access to information" is pretty clear-cut. The plaintiffs organized against Dragonfly, a censored version of Google that would provide users biased access to information. IMO they've got a pretty good case that the employee handbook, which they had to abide by to keep their job, told them to do that.
TheCoelacanth 5y ago
Surely if a company policy is vague, that should be the company's problem, not the employees. If employees made a good faith effort to follow a vague policy and were fired for that, it seems like wrongful termination to me. If the company doesn't like the way employees are interpreting the policy, then they shouldn't have such a ludicrously vague policy.

mpd 5y ago

> No reasonable person could understand the phrase, "Don't Be Evil," to mean, "Don't do things that I personally consider evil." TBH, I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter. Did you mistype here? Maybe there's even something different about using "evil" here, specifically. Would another word have a different outcome?

bananabreakfast 5y ago
No one treats it that way. A reasonable person should understand it not as requesting to make subjective personal judgments but rather as what it clearly was meant as: "Don't be Microsoft"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mpd 5y ago
  Only if said "reasonable person" were around in the 90's, and knew the shit that MS was trying to pull. I happen to be one of those people, but that's not the catch of the day here.
- Tempest1981 5y ago
  Really? Microsoft never crossed my mind when hearing the motto years ago. I interpreted it more generically as "make the world a better place... by organizing the world's information, and making it easily accessible".
  - native_samples 5y ago
    Lack of history. I worked there and this is correct. The motto originates in the very earliest days of Google when they - like most other software firms - feared Microsoft more than any other company. In particular they feared being locked out of Windows or discouraged via IE defaults, killed the same way Netscape was. This was a big part of the reason for the original Google Toolbar. It was at the height of the Microsoft trial, Gates had been doing a lot of questionable things and there was a general agreement that the company was Bad News. Slashdot's Borg logo dates from this time. Don't be Evil was basically a kind of jokey collective agreement that Google wouldn't become like Microsoft. Of course twenty years later the industry had grown enormously, Microsoft is no longer the big bad wolf, many working people in tech have no recollection of any of this and in America, exist in an ideological pressure cooker that tells them anything that isn't left wing is "evil". So the motto had been lifted out of its very 90s and software specific context to become a stick for perpetual interns to beat people of the wrong political persuasion. If this stupidity actually goes anywhere near a serious court case it wouldn't surprise me if this history gets dug up.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
> TBH, I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter. Did you mistype here? I don't think so. For example, there are religions that consider the lending of money to be evil, but I am quite certain Google did not have in mind that adherents of these religions should leak documents to the press if Google were to offer a credit card. Likewise, Google was not interested in the moral views of its conservative religious employees when it started offering various types of support for LGBTQ people. I think when most people hear, "Don't be evil," they understand it to mean things along the lines of, "Don't be unfair to users, don't act with malice, don't lie, cheat, or steal, etc." I.e. don't do things that are essentially universally considered evil. I do not believe many people interpret that as, "protest every time Google violates your personal moral code, no matter how esoteric or idiosyncratic."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- danielheath 5y ago
  Those things are clearly ~not~ universally seen as evil in the corporate world (and other places, but the corporate world is the relevant area here), given the prevalence of deception & unfair conduct present.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    > Those things are clearly ~not~ universally seen as evil in the corporate world I mean, we're getting pretty deep into the weeds of what we mean by, "seen as evil" or even "evil" at this point. Which is kinda what I was getting at. I think stealing is universally understood to be evil, even in the corporate world, but people will differ on what stealing actually is, or whether a particular act is stealing. A recent example that comes to mind is the Citibank/Revlon situation. I personally thought that was theft by Revlon, but there are a lot of people who see it another way. I understand that Revlon's employees did not view their behavior as evil, even if it seemed bad to me. Nearly everyone is righteous in their own eyes. And adults understand this. That's part of why it's my view that most people will understand Google's former motto to not be inclusive of being an activist against Google's interests, even in morally ambiguous cases, and even after being asked not to. I don't really have any way to convey this more clearly, so I guess we'll have to let time, that great prover of claims, tell. Maybe I'm wrong and the court will hand these people a willion dollars. I don't think so.
AlbertCory 5y ago
> "I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter" First of all, that's debatable. Even if true, they're wrong.
- mpd 5y ago
  If your only special move is "You're wrong!", it's going to be hard to talk to you. What do you think is debatable?
q1w2 5y ago
The issue is that they used their own interpretation of "don't be evil", even when the company TOLD them that certain things were not evil. The phrase is meant to be a catch-all against policies that are not specified - not a carte-blanche to do whatever the F you want in contradiction of what the company is telling you.

chickenpotpie 5y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem Ambiguity in a contract benefits the party that did not draft it

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I will be shocked if this principle is sufficient to allow them to win this case. We'll see.
- pg_1234 5y ago
  Even if they don't win, in a public trial, given the current political attitude to Big Tech, this could cost Google billions just in the discovery process.
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    "Billions" is a very large number, even for elite coders or lawyers that's thousands of person years - or tens of thousands for mere mortals. Somehow I doubt that any company would assign ten thousand people for a civil suit discovery...
    - pg_1234 5y ago
      Not directly, but the reputational damage ... and the possibility that national governments might be emboldened to act against Google in tax or privacy domains could knock percentage points off the market cap.
tehwebguy 5y ago
Yeah but it's not really a contract, the code of conduct clearly doesn't obligate Google to do anything. It's just a list of basic rules & policies like every other company has, its purpose is to put a bunch of rules in writing and it is signed by new hires so that there's a documented acknowledgement of those policies. That is, a CoC is often the document used when firing someone but is rarely going to help someone keep their job. A company breaking or changing policy is not by definition unlawful or a violation of any employee's rights in the US. There are exceptions to this, but many people would be blown away at the massive leeway companies have (e.g. only ~20 states consider PTO "earned wages", other states have far lower or no PTO protections on termination). That said, their lawsuit isn't really about breach of contract, it's just one of the 5 counts they are trying to establish (the complaint is only 13 pages double spaced, totally worth skimming[0]): COUNT I: BREACH OF CONTRACT - Plaintiffs say they were fired for following the CoC and calling out evil (working with DHS / CBP / ICE) that Google was doing or considering doing. COUNT II: PROMISSORY ESTOPPEL - They would have taken a job elsewhere if they knew "Don't be Evil" wasn't going to be honored and gave up opportunities for no reason since it wasn't. COUNT III: BREACH OF IMPLIED COVENANT OF GOOD FAITH AND FAIR DEALING - Basically the same as count 1 but focused on bad faith by changing the policy. COUNT IV SLANDER/FALSE LIGHT - Plaintiffs say Google slandered them by falsely saying they leaked confidential information. COUNT V: TERMINATION IN VIOLATION OF PUBLIC POLICY - Plaintiffs say they were fired for exercising protected political action and/or for their membership of protected classes. In my opinion the DHS / CBP / ICE child separation policy is pure evil, so is a lot of the incarceration this country[1], but the lawsuit isn't going to come down to the definition of evil so much as it will come down to California employment law. [0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_complaint_filed https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp... [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jaile...

Talanes 5y ago

>Or to put it another way, don't have mottos. Having a motto is fine. Asking your employees to comply with a completely vague and subjective objective in their employment contract is asking for trouble, however.

geofft 5y ago

You can see the whole legal argument - it's linked from the first sentence of the article, and it quotes the relevant section of the employee code of conduct: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_complaint_filed https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp... > “Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information. focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services we can. But it's also about doing the right thing more generally ~ following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect. That is pretty specific. You need to provide users unbiased access to information, focus on their needs, and give them the best products and services you can. You also need to follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect. The courts do in fact understand legally-binding terms to mean something. (See also the fact that IBM's lawyers sought a specific exemption from the JSON license's "The Software shall be used for Good, and not Evil," because they knew there was a chance the courts would find something they did "Evil," because if it's in a contract, it means something.) So what do they mean? Some of these clauses - "giving them the best products and services we can," "acting honorably," etc. - are a little squishy. But "providing our users unbiased access to information" is pretty clear-cut. The plaintiffs organized against Dragonfly, a censored version of Google that would provide users biased access to information. IMO they've got a pretty good case that the employee handbook, which they had to abide by to keep their job, told them to do that.

TheCoelacanth 5y ago

Surely if a company policy is vague, that should be the company's problem, not the employees. If employees made a good faith effort to follow a vague policy and were fired for that, it seems like wrongful termination to me. If the company doesn't like the way employees are interpreting the policy, then they shouldn't have such a ludicrously vague policy.