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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.
What are they going to do? Kill m*BANG*
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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. Then get a photocopy of it. Usually companies will accept the modified contract without even looking at it, they are that self-absorbed.
Agreements and contracts can be modified by any party that accepts or signs them. Usually they also contain the phrase that it cannot be modified by you, but just line out and strike it first.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
What you are not allowed to do in the section mentioned there is use the fact that you had a meeting with google in your marketing or press releases. It does not say you can never mention google, as the summary indicates. For individuals, the most likely and probably only implication of the section is that you might not be able to use an employment offer from google as a bargening chip with other companies, but this isn't clear to me, as I don't know if that can be considered in the classes of things you cannot disclose from other sections (or if by nature a job offer to you does not ential a duty of confidentiality on your part since it isn't related to trade secrets or anything else explicitly mentioned).
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As someone who has signed the damned thing (after showing it to my lawyer), I can tell you for sure that it can be attacked on the grounds of blatant inequity.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"I know, I have several years on my resume I can't talk abuot except in the most vague ways."
Yeah, that part of your 'career' where you were in jail for climbing into the endangered bird sanctuary at your local zoo and buggering a heron.
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."
"And this NDA never expires."
I thought that 2038 was a far expiration date for their cookie, now I must revise my judgement...
No. While it does some cutting edge work, it is not anything particularly new as far as working methods are concerned:
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.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I have remained silent too long and I must point out that in fact Google caused my divorce. I was contacted by them numerous times for technical phone screens and was eventually brought out to CA for an interview and received very positive feedback. However, because of the evil NDA I was forced to keep all of this information from my wife. To her I was acting strange by: 1) jumping up from the dinner table to take phone calls in the other room, 2) flying out to some unknown location for a couple days, 3) returning happy, and 4) refusing to explain any of these actions. Google and its insidious NDA have ruined my marriage... woe is me!
-m
California law regarding non-competes has certainly changed to protect the employee. Now any type of blanket non-compete is completely void in California. This includes agreements which do not specifically contain non-compete terms, but which accomplishes the same goal. One caveat is the law still provides for non-competition based upon trade secret or confidential information. Thus many confidentiality agreements signed in CA between employees and employers comprise some type of prohibition of using "trade secret" or "confidential" material in subsequent competition.
The big question is determining what exactly is trade secret or confidential information of the employer, and not general information related to that specific job or industry.
And yes, IAAL in CA deals with this type of law, usually ex employees who take customers lists or other secret info and start a competing business.
on the upside you could make your own crappy search engine called "Giggle", sign an NDA that you made yourself and tell prospective employers you're not at liberty to talk about it but it started with a "G"
Let them jump to the conclusions that you used to work for Google.
Collector's Edition
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".
... stuff" letter.
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
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...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think I understand. Your basically saying that a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given?
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
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.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton