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Unless there is a contractual clause saying that google employees shall have no services provided to them from another company (and from the word "forces" I ass
by prat 17y ago
Unless there is a contractual clause saying that google employees shall have no services provided to them from another company (and from the word "forces" I assume there is not), google should not have forced this employee. Insecurity is not a hallmark of a genuinely better company.
- jriddycuz 17y agoI don't see what's different about this and, say, the Minnesota Vikings asking Brett Favre not to wear a Packers hat.
- jrockway 17y agoThis is more like them asking him not to receive an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin.
- tptacek 17y agoThe honorary degree doesn't include a contract.
- jrockway 17y agoIf signing a contract is prohibited, do any Google employees have credit cards, bank accounts, or mortgages?
- tptacek 17y agoBecause none of those contracts affect Google's IP.
- jrockway 17y agoNor does the MVP contract.
- mr_luc 17y agoHe would have to sign a Microsoft NDA. So he does X at Google based on his knowledge of something he can't disclose. MS says "Google did X because their employee broke NDA." Come on -- basically any prudent company would do what Google did. That doesn't make it good or bad, in and of itself, but it seems silly to say some of the things people are saying on this page just because a company took the standard, cautious route.
- InclinedPlane 17y agoNeither does MVP status. Does google force its employees to forgo doctor patient confidentiality, or attorney-client privilege? Does google force its employees to avoid signing up for game beta programs that might require an NDA?
- tptacek 17y agoDon't be silly. Doctor-patient confidentiality and attorney-client privilege are matters of state and federal law. NDA's are matters of contract law. Google and Microsoft are archcompetitors. Any number of things could happen that could cause MSFT to sue GOOG over violation of that contract, starting with tortious interference.
- jacquesm 17y agoGoogle is not party to the contract, so they have nothing to fear. You can not be sued over a violation of a contract that you are not a party to, that's just plain silly. In fact, any number of google employees could have singed any number of NDAs with other companies without ever having disclosed those to google or being required to do so. And google could never be sued for violating those contracts, tortious interference would be limited to those cases where google would force the employee to breach their NDAs, naturally limited to any confidential information that that employee might have (my guess: not much). As long as that's not the case I really don't see why simply letting this guy have his 'status' could ever be a problem. If microsoft wants to sue google I'm pretty sure it won't be over something as petty as that, and if they do it'll be a minor blip on googles legal bill and a bit of bad PR for microsoft. Now it's significant bad PR for google, they come across as petty and paranoid.
- tptacek 17y agoYou absolutely can be sued over a violation of a contract that you are not a party to. One way is called interference. MSFT needs a reasonable expectency of a valid business relationship with the MVP. GOOG would have to know about the relationship between MSFT and the MSFT. MSFT would have to argue that GOOG intentionally interfered with the relationship with the MVP (such as by exploiting the MVP's NDA to get sensitive information about product plans), and then argue that GOOG's interference damaged MSFT. I'm not a lawyer, but been at companies where things like this have happened over noncompetes and NDA's. Obviously, if GOOG and the MVP do nothing to violate the NDA, nobody should get sued. Obviously, it is possible for the MVP to work at GOOG with any number of tricky relationships with MSFT. But saying "GOOG didn't sign the contract, so it could never (your word) be GOOG's problem" is a drastic oversimplification of the legal risk.
- pmorici 17y agodoesn't say he was forced to just suggested. If he didn't want them to say "no" he shouldn't have asked.
- madair 17y agoAh, yes, "suggested"
- natrius 17y agoIt is perfectly reasonable for Google to discourage employees from entering into non-disclosure agreements with competitors.
- patio11 17y agoBut its an NDA about their upcoming C# news, something Google has less-than-zero interest in. This rationale makes about as much sense as a corporate directive to avoid signing NDAs for MMORPG betas.