I'm not a lawyer, so keep in mind that I have no idea what I'm talking about, but see comments by DannyBee in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

I'm not a lawyer, so keep in mind that I have no idea what I'm talking about, but see comments by DannyBee in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4051635 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4051635 The way I read it is that Google has their hands in so many projects that they would have a good claim on your free-time work, even in California. Just another good reason to ignore their recruiter emails.