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

Re:This just in

[arivanov]

No. While it does some cutting edge work, it is not anything particularly new as far as working methods are concerned:

• Google has strict separation between network, servers and development. You are not allowed to straddle fences. In fact this is something you are asked during the interview process long before any NDAs. So if you have a skillset which spans multiple disciplines you are of no interest to them. Based on prolonged and utterly disfunctional dialogue with their recruiters, they want "industry standard" people. Outstanding - maybe, but "industry standard" none the less, which fit exactly the industry standard niches
• Google deploys industry standard working methods - current and past:
  • Own project time, mandatory skills improvement, etc - ATT, Xerox, etc had that 30 years before them. Granted they abandoned it when descending into the outsourcing sweatshop frenzy, but there is nothing new in this. This was the industry standard for a long time until some penny pinching idiots decided to "rationalize" it. Same for many of the other famous gimmicks.
  • Google operates a more or less strictly on-site shop. So telecommuting, no teleworking, etc. Once again, nothing new, nothing revolutionary, firmly stuck in the past. Half of the Valley (and outside it) is way ahead of it on this one.

Google has some of the attributes which the industry used to have before penny-pinching cretins tried to "rationalize" it. As a result it achieves roughly what the industry used to achieve in those days. In fact less. Just look at the level of innovation coming out of ATT, IBM, Xerox and early Valley companies 30+ years ago per hour human time invested. In everything besides these "blast from the past" attritbutes it is an utterly bog standard corporation. And the primary aim of the NDA is to hide this, not to hide its supersecret achievements.

And now follows news at 11.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[Lumpy]

I modify EVERY contract I sign. I NEVER EVER sign a contract as-is. From a car purchase to a Cellphone contract.

Only fools blindly sign those things, and these companies know that most people are in fact fools.

I struck out the no compete and the "we own all your IP" sections of my comcast contract and EVERY contract they make you sign yearly when the stupid HR department tries to prove they are worth something.

I make a copy before submitting (I refuse to do their Online signing, it pissed off all the HR people) worked there 7 years until I moved on to a far better job, Did the same thing here to.

If you sign ANYTHING without reading it in it's entirety and modifying the thing you do not agree to, you really are a silly fool.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you get too self-righteous, note that there may be advantages to not modifying standard contracts. If the contract cannot be modified by one party, then it is considered a contract of adhesion, and in grey areas courts will rule against the drafting party. If you make your own changes then you could be assuming some of the responsibility that goes with drafting a contract. That could be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

See, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem

Re:MIght not be enforcable...

[MontyApollo]

I would have to call bullshit. You are stretching quite a bit to defend Google.

Most NDA's and non-competes seemed to be designed to intimidate the employee first, stand up in court second. If NDA issues end up in court, the employee is already screwed by having to pay the legal fees.