Google's Evil NDA 452
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.
MIght not be enforcable... (Score:1, Interesting)
You can't force people to keep salaries secret... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You can't force people to keep salaries secret. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This just in (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix. (Score:5, Interesting)
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:MIght not be enforcable... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you sign such slave agreement, you are just too stupid. Don't apply for a job with me afterwards or I'll laugh even harder at you.
Copyright? (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but I seem to remember hearing that contracts are specifically not eligible for copyright. Anyone know more about this issue?
Re:MIght not be enforcable... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course you can talk about it at interviews (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you think that is evil (Score:5, Interesting)
So tell me L in CA - I'm curious... In Canada we have certain constitutional rights protected under the charter. On of those rights is the right to a trial - I understand that the right to trial is also Constitutionally protected in the US also. I read further down this thread that people have waved their rights on Wall Street to have all their legal proceedings run by quasi-judicial councils instead on the NASD...
Does your employer in the US have the right to force upon you as a term of employment anything that violates statute - either by Congress or the State government? I know in Canada, I was asked by an employer to waive my rights under the Employment Standards act in order to continue employment. I refused and took up the matter with our labour board. They were quite clear that contract law can never in Canada trump a law enacted by an Act of the House of Commons or even an act by our Provincial Legislature. Is that the case in the US too?
Re:Things like this are easy to fix. (Score:5, Interesting)
See, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem [wikipedia.org]
Re:MIght not be enforcable... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Almost as bad as Coca Cola (Score:3, Interesting)
Perpetuity... (Score:1, Interesting)
Section 4 (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm not sure I'd ever want to work there though, there was a definite air of arrogance and superiority to the employees I talked to. I'm fairly sure this was because of their high percentage of PhD's and I understand that's been changing; but I distinctly recall that left a very bad taste in my mouth.
AC because of the second statement, my opinion of which my change.
Re:If you think that is evil (Score:3, Interesting)
violates NDA? (Score:1, Interesting)
-Tony
Re:If you think that is evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you think that is evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:when is slashdot going to fall out of love? (Score:2, Interesting)
But I do love google, they have improved my live by creating many very useful tools...
And I don't think this NDA is abnormal, I have signed a number myself and they don't prevent me from talking, they just make me aware of who I am talking to. Violating an NDA will only get you in trouble if something negative happens to the company because you said something you shouldn't have.
Such as giving away secrets to a competitor, causing unwanted press, etc.. If you screw something up, they want to make sure they can point at the NDA you signed and say you violated it, and I think they are reasonable to want to protect themselves in that way.