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.

Evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

And he's been forced to sign this at gun point, right?

1st rule of google is you do NOT talk about google

[Himring]

The first rule of fight club is you do NOT talk about fight club.
The second rule of fight club is you do NOT talk about fight club.
The third rule of fight club is you can NEVER reverse engineer meatloafs fake boobs....

I applied there

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they going to do? Kill m*BANG*

[Yes, we are. We will however submit your Slashdot message as a warning for others.]

...or mentioning or implying the name of Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Voldemort, is that you?

As a Google employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I can't comment on this post.

Re:If you think that is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:1st rule of google is you do NOT talk about goo

[forand]

Sadly and to the great detriment to my eyesight they were not fake.

Re:kinda saw it first hand

[Billosaur]

Not as odd as if you wear a Masonic ring and are a Mason...

Re:If you think that is evil

[forrestt]

Is that what that guy meant when he said in his interview he was doing "volunteer research into the sexual habits of endanger water foul"?

Re:1st rule of google is you do NOT talk about goo

[hal2814]

"The third rule of fight club is you can NEVER reverse engineer meatloafs fake boobs...."

His name is Robert Paulson.

Re:MIght not be enforcable...

[DaJoky]

"And this NDA never expires."
I thought that 2038 was a far expiration date for their cookie, now I must revise my judgement...

I've Seen Worse Than that Even....

[mqudsi]

I was hired to write a program. The NDA dictated that I couldn't talk about the program or who hired me, or how it worked or what it did. And it had one evil clause in there that made it outrageous: I wasn't allowed to use the program that I developed. Not even during debugging/coding. Just had to code, and hope it ran when the guys that were allowed to use it came. But that doesn't mean Google's isn't bad... Just you know, all things considered..

Very Meta

[Anonymous Coward]

The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded...

E.g. cause them to drop 30 year old pop culture references?

Google caused my divorce!

[minotaurcomputing]

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

Re:As a Google employee...

[p!ssa]

As a WHAT employee?

FIRED!

Re:If you think that is evil

[twistedsymphony]

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.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[sabre86]

Who's blog? Feynman's? He died in 1988, I don't think he had a blog. Also, in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he distinctly says he was rejected from the army. Seems to me either you've been bullshitted or are bullshitting yourself. Not sure which.

Re:Oh noes.

[Elvis Parsley]

All well and good, but clearly the terms of your contract prevent you from disclosing your name.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I've Seen Worse Than that Even....

[__aaclcg7560]

Working at the CIA or NSA is always fun.

Re:MIght not be enforcable...

[SoCalEd]

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?

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[donnyspi]

Goliath does not negotiate with David.

If memory serves, David easily killed Goliath.

Re:Things like this are easy to fix.

[sd_diamond]

this will work less and less, especially at big companies. the basic problem is that the people who make these policy decisions are totally insulated from any negative effects of the policy. if google unknowningly turned down someone who would have gone on to make them billions because s/he didn't want to sign the nda, how would they ever know?

In fact, they are almost certain not to know, because even if that person goes on to great fame and wealth, they're prevented by the NDA from ever mentioning that they interviewed at Google.

Genius!

Re:Google? I know nothing, nothing!

[Net_Wakker]

Apparently you can't ever mention google again. This might mean you can only wear your t-shirt at home, with the curtains closed and no-one around.

OTOH

[C10H14N2]

I love these things. It makes interviews so much easier.

Q:"So, can you provide samples of your work?"
A:"Since you want me to sign an NDA to work here, and that would violate the NDA I signed there, if I did that, it would render my signature worthless, so, no."
Q:"Well, okay, then, do you have any references we can call?"
A:"My severance contract forbids me from talking about them and them about me beyond title and dates of employment, and since I'm sure you do the same, see above. But, I'm sure my mom will put in a good word."
Q:"..."
A:"So, when do I start?"
Q:"Tomorrow good for you?"

What's really asinine is I've had several /successful/ interviews like that because everyone is doing this stuff.

Re:Oh noes.

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Man, that's gotta make ordering take-out a bitch...

Speaking of nuance ...

[Loundry]

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. slashdot: google = microsoft.

Let me switch my brain into stark, uncompromising black-and-white mode so that I can understand the logic.

<click>

Okay. Here we go:

1 employee: good
2-9 employees: good
10-49 employees: good
50+ employees: BLAM! EVIL! MICROSOFT -EVIL!

Slashdot, what you must learn is that *ALL* large companies are automatically evil, as the table (above) clearly shows. They are *ALL* as evil as Microsoft once they become large. End of discussion.

<click>

Re:If you know your rights you can sign lots of st

[Miniluv]

This was like the lease agreement I signed that disclaimed their responsibility for paying me interest on my security deposit. Here in Illinois the law requires it, and the law also states that you cannot contract away legal obligations or rights. The fight over that when I moved out last all of 30 seconds when I faxed the appropriate parts of Illinois statute to them, and told them I would be exercising my right as a tenant (under their lease agreement) to post information of community interest in the common area of all buildings, namely the same excerpts of statute.

After all was said and done the office manager thanked me, she didn't like the provision and didn't like screwing over the folks who didn't know any better but needed her job too much to rock the boat. I however had nothing to lose, and almost $6 to gain.

Re:If you think that is evil

[Thuktun]

If I can't even tell my family that I had an interview with Google, what won't I be able to tell them if I take a job there?

We can't tell you.