Google's Evil NDA

An anonymous reader writes "Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil" — but they sure have an evil non-disclosure agreement! In order to be considered for employment there, you must sign an agreement that forbids you to 'mention or imply the name of Google' in public ever again. Further, you can't tell anyone you interviewed there, or what they offered you, and you possibly sign away your rights to reverse-engineer any of Google's code, ever. And this NDA never expires. Luckily, someone has posted excerpts from the NDA before he signed it and had to say silent forever." At the bottom of the posting are links to a few other comments on the Web about Google's NDA, including a ValleyWag post that reproduces it in its entirety.

Comments

What's the problem?

[What Is Dot]

I don't see any problem with this kind of an agreement. The government has similar agreements, but theirs are far more strict. How does this hurt the potential employee anyway? When a company is trying to protect its interest in a highly competitive field, how much is too much?

Re:If you think that is evil

[geekoid]

first of all, just because it is 'worse' on Wall Street, doesn't mean this is good.
Second of all, Yuour arguement is based on a fallcy. Basically it assumes there is equall opportunity everywhere at all times, AND nt everyone will make you sign something similiar.

Freedom is about choice, and chosing between eating ar dying isn't really the freedom the founding fathers had in mind.

There was a time in California where in order to work, you had to sign a non-compete. Everyone was doing it, and it effectivlly became 'you can never work for anyone else again.'

The up shot is now non-competes are not valid. there are a few exceptions.

NDAs are starting to become that way. 'You can never talk about what you do here' effectivly kills a career.
I know, I have several years on my resume I can't talk abuot except in the most vague ways.

when is slashdot going to fall out of love?

[circletimessquare]

this story is only shocking and interesting to those who still believe google is somehow saintly amongst large companies. that's impossible. a large company is a large company is a large company. they're all the same amount of corporate evil (however small or large you imagine that necessary/ unnecessary evil to be, salt to your particular political inclinations)

there is a certain prejudicial aura around google in the slashdot crowd. circa 2002, google was every geek's wet dream, powerhouse little startup bringing the big bad guys to their knees at their own game. however, since that time, google has morphed into just another 500 pound corporate gorilla, no better and no worse than microsoft, or walmart, or any other corporate bogeyman of your choice

slashdot: google = microsoft. get it into your head. doubleclick and privacy, china censorship, this nda. take your pick. fall out of love. the fairy tale story is over

in all of your prejudicial and stereotypical ways of thinking about microsoft, apply it to google, and then maybe ytou have a better understandning of that company (and of microsoft, while google is not as saintly as the presumed slashdot prejudice imagines, microsoft is not as rabidly evil as the presumed slashdot prejudice imagines)

please update your circa 2002 prejudicial impressions of google to 2007. k thx

Re:when is slashdot going to fall out of love?

[gurps_npc]

Believe that all large companies are equally evil is as stupid as beliveing that Goodle is not evil.

Evilness is not only caused by the nature of having a large organziation, and . Large organizations encourage it by their nature, but it not the only cause.

Enron was TRULY, FREAKIN EVIL.

They intentionally gamed the system to raise energy prices, cheating their customers, the states, everyone. They encouraged employees to buy Enron stock despite many of them KNOWING they they were breaking the law. They lied about everything, and engaged in multiple criminal actions, including destoying documents.

Google is no Enron. They are not as evil as all other companies.

I would probably rank Google as one of the better companies. On a scale of evil from 0 being a one more store run by an honest priest, to 100 being Enron, they are probably a solid 70. Microsoft is around a 85-90 or so. They cheated their customers and clients, but never cheated their own employees and generally admitted their illegal activities instead of working as hard to cover them up as they did to do them in the first place.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[Red Flayer]

Just line out, and initial the parts you want struck. Add the phrase to the effect that by accepting this NDA as modified that Google agrees to it in it's modified entirety.

That works if the potential employee pool is shallow. People are knocking down doors to work at Google, so Google can just say no and move on to the next highly qualified applicant who won't potentially cause them legal nightmares down the road.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[ivan256]

I've modified the NDA at two places I've worked, and modified the non-compete and copyright assignment forms at *every* job I've worked at. I've even discussed the changes with the hiring manager. Yet I still worked for those companies.

Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself. It will probably even earn you some respect.

Re:If you think that is evil

[MontyApollo]

It does seem pretty extreme just to do an interview. Especially about never mentioning the word "Google" ever again, even if you don't get the job.

It seems the NDA could make it hard to ever get another job after Google, since you are not allowed to even mention Google or say what your salary was. That might make a resume look pretty funny, and it could be an awkward interview. "Yes, I used to work for an internet search engine company, but I can't tell you which one."

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[SpacePunk]

Hardly anybody tries that, and most people dont' even read what they sign. I do it on credit card applications (have two modified credit cards where the company can't change the interest rate), job applications (back when I wanted one, now I'm a consultant), any time someone wants me to sign anything. I read it all, modify what is needed, and it just really pisses people off when you read everything you sign. It's amazing the length of audacity that people that work for large companies will go to. My insurance agent once wanted me to sign that I read a particular item, so I forced him to produce it (took the asshole an hour and a half to find one), and I read it... slowly.

Slashdot here is a duality of bullshit. On one hand there are a lot of people here that like to bad mouth corporations, but they'd sign that NDA without reading it because it's 'google'. Well, fuck Google, it's a large corporation now, and it'll bend you over and fuck you in the ass if it thought that would get it ahead (speaking as an entity). One of the other dualities are the pagans that like to bad mouth christianity even though paganism is just as stupid.

NDA Clarification

[noirsoldats]

Ok... let's deconstruct (reverse engineer?) the part of the NDA that most people seem to be getting their panties in a bunch over,

4. Participant agrees not to do the following, except with the advanced review and written approval of Google: (a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity or other matter relating to this Agreement (including the fact that a meeting or discussion has taken place between the parties) or mentioning or implying the name of Google; (b) make copies of documents containing Confidential Information; or (c) reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile, translate, or attempt to discover any prototypes, software, algorithms, or underlying ideas which embody Google's Confidential Information. specifically Section 4a. Now, you know the legal-ese buzzwords in this are rather minimal so I'm not sure why you people are having SUCH a hard time reading this.. but let me break it down for you...

(a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity or other matter relating to this Agreement (including the fact that a meeting or discussion has taken place between the parties) or mentioning or implying the name of Google; First let's take out the parenthetical un-needed junk.

(a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity or other matter relating to this Agreement or mentioning or implying the name of Google; *points up* Is that any more clear without the 'thought bump' in the middle? Participant agrees not to 'issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity or other matter relating to this Agreement or mentioning or implying the name of Google'..... Meaning don't release news stories or make advertisements about something 'confidential' relating to Google of which you know nothing about. Ya know, like spreading rumors. Open your eyes folks, not a THING unusual about this NDA except for the wording.. And that in itself isn't unusual, it is just that Google seems to getting a lot more attention than any company before them. Side Note: Does this really deserve to be an article?

NDAs hurt your career.

[Opportunist]

I've had some time in the auditing sector. If you think Google's NDA is bad, don't ever go there. What I had to sign can be easily summed up with "You're not gonna talk about what you did here, when you did it, who you worked with or even that you did it, or we'll make sure you won't work again, ever".

Now, when I movee away I got 5 years of thin air in my CV. Can't write anything sensible in there. Tops would be "5 years at $auditing". No job description, no work place, no reference, nada. The only thing I got was a quite bland, nondescript "Yeah, that guy worked for us for those 5 years and he did ... stuff" letter.

You can't even violate that NDA and tell your future employee what you did. If you do, it shows him that you don't give a shit about NDAs and there goes your job opportunity, since, well, if you didn't even honor the NDA of a company that does actually have the muscle to make sure you won't work EVER again if they found out, how much do you care about the NDA of some smaller company?

NDAs mean that you can't use your quite interesting experience in your CVs. Some of the things I did back then would have made my CV shine brilliantly for the job I got now. Luckily, I got it regardless, without having to break the NDAs I signed then.

But I guess I could've asked for a few hundreds more, if I could've told him just what I know. I do have valuable knowledge for my employer that he would maybe honor with more money. I just can't talk about it.

So, bottom line, I am lucky regardless. Many ain't, because they can't use their experience in their CV, due to NDAs. They can't say that they know, say, the flaws of online banking software when they start at a security company that was recently hired by some bank.

Just as an example, of course...

Re:If you think that is evil

[spun]

Are you trying to say that no one has the right to complain about these NDAs simply because they have the option not to sign them? We are simply discussing things that we don't like. If enough people can agree that we really don't like these things, then together we can force employers not to do them. This is the free market in labor at work.

You don't have a problem with free speech and the free market, do you?

Companies have every right to ask us to do anything, and we have the right to discuss what was asked and tell them to fuck off if we don't like it. It sounds as though you wish we weren't even discussing this.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[Red Flayer]

Not everyone shares the same value set as you, and not everyone who has a different value set is evil.

This is a trait of the weak.

No. It's a trait of those who choose to apply their strength to a different application.

No, no red herring there. Everyone that stayed with google after that, and those that wish to join google after that, implicitly agree with what google did. Evil companies are staffed by evil people

Nothing is as black-and-white as you make it out to be. You've a very simplistic view that must make it hard for you to do anything in life, since everything you do has a negative impact somewhere and is therefore evil, if by inaction you could have prevented the negative impact. Did a friend of yours ever do anything wrong? Did you maintain a friendship with that person, even though by doing so you implicitly agreed with their action? How about a child? If an adult does something wrong, are their parents evil because they did not disown their child?

Categorizing everything into binary black-and-white good and evil is an admission of weakness -- it's admitting that you don't have the ability to weigh relative merits and demerits against eachother.

Not working for an ambiguous company simply because they are ambiguous is also a sign of weakness -- a sign of strength would be to change the company from within.

There will be no shortage of people willing to work for Google. What you are advocating is to ignore evil, rather than working to change it. This is real weakness.

Re:If you think that is evil

[mjm1231]

The fact that someone who promotes voting Libertarian in their sig, but does not have a problem with corporations placing limits on personal liberty, explains exactly why I don't vote Libertarian.

Hilarious

[spun]

Oh man, I don't usually respond to ACs, but the level of rabid, frothing defense of the status quo here is just too funny not to comment on.

I have every right to get together with other workers and your customers and decide amongst ourselves to fuck you and your business over through entirely legal, market driven means if you don't treat us the way we want to be treated, and there's nothing you can do about it, chump. It's called the free market, get used to it. The days of kings, nobles, and slave-owners telling us what to do are several centuries gone now.