Ex-Google workers sue company, saying it betrayed 'Don't Be Evil' motto

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059821677/google-dont-be-evil-lawsuit

by authed • 5 years ago

285 200 5 years ago

Three former Google employees have sued the company, alleging that Google's motto "Don't be evil" amounts to a contractual obligation that the tech giant has violated.

How could anything possibly happen other than getting tossed out of court immediately? They want US courts to adjudicate which acts are and are not "evil"?

jldugger• 5 years ago

I'm curious how a judge tosses this out. Do they just say "Look, the law has nothing to do with stopping evil, so stop asking us to try"?

thaumasiotes5• 5 years ago

The law isn't unrelated to stopping evil, but it isn't able to determine what evil is.

Whether an act is "evil" is a theological question, so to the extent plaintiffs are actually relying on the word "evil", separation of church and state will prevent the court from even considering their claims.

sjtindell• 5 years ago

I would assume it would be about “don’t be evil” being such a broad, noncommittal statement.

akomtu3• 5 years ago

The judge should quote Eliphas Levi on what evil is. IIRC, Levi argues that evil is about abandoning reason, for reason is what makes us different from animals.

Minor49er• 5 years ago

The judge would say "what laws were specifically broken?" Then toss it out when the plaintiffs come up empty handed. If the case somehow did get through, they would have to justify how their own repeated violations of Google's data security policies, which led to their terminations, would put them in the right. They would have a hard time of showing that they themselves are clean of evil.

authed• 5 years ago

At least they have a better chance then if they went against the current motto "Do the right thing" (ie: the right thing for who? the advertisers?).

carlivar3• 5 years ago

If Google was able to fire workers for being evil, I think these employees have a case for the reverse as well.

Many contract disputes boil down to the definition of the term "reasonable" so why would "evil" be different? Ultimately it's on Google for including the word in legal documents.

bpodgursky• 5 years ago

If Google was able to fire workers for being evil, I think these employees have a case for the reverse as well.

The reverse here is that the employees are allowed to quit. Google isn't trying to sue any employees for "being evil".

Animats• 5 years ago

That's a good point. You see phrases such as "consent shall not be unreasonably withheld" in contracts. It's common in leases, where you can sublet with the consent of the landlord. Court decisions in this area are not consistent.

AlbertCory10• 5 years ago

"If Google was able to fire workers for being evil"

Are you treating that as fact?

Obviously I haven't looked at the paperwork for every fired employee (and probably no one will ever get to), but I think they have some other pretext. "<employee> was fired for being evil" is not a phrase you'll ever find.

blitzar• 5 years ago

Are you saying I hae a case against my company because they are incompetent. I would be fired for incompetence, so I should be able to sue my employer for the vauge crime of being incompetent for say ... $100million?

NaturalPhallacy• 5 years ago

FTA:

"There are all sorts of contract terms that a jury is required to interpret: 'don't be evil' is not so 'out there' as to be unenforceable," she said. "Since Google's contract tells employees that they can be fired for failing to abide by the motto, 'don't be evil,' it must have meaning."

thaumasiotes5• 5 years ago

That doesn't mean that the meaning can be determined by a court. It can't.

ransom1538• 5 years ago

Step 1. Hire thousands of social justice warriors.

Step 2. Deal with thousands of internal lawsuits related to "social justice" and internal squabbling.

sigzero2• 5 years ago

Yeah, it pretty much IS unenforceable.

daenz2• 5 years ago

This is what happens when people are radicalized by their feelings. I'm confident that their hearts are in the right place, but give me a break. If you work at Google, you should have the sense that this kind of flimsy case is going nowhere at all.

But the plaintiffs' lawyer, Laurie Burgess, said it is not beyond what courts regularly must decide.

Sounds like the lawyer is taking them for a ride on their dime, imo.

crawfordcomeaux• 5 years ago

There's literally no other way typ find out if this can be handled in the courts.

InvertedRhodium• 5 years ago

I'm inclined to agree, however if you remove the feelings from the situation - it doesn't seem much different to any other contractual obligations - like the amount and frequency of their wage payments.

If your contract stipulates that you (and your employer) should "do no evil" without supplying a definition for "evil" then it really isn't that much different to any other contractual breach. Also, you'd have to be stupid to put that in an actual contract.

gnicholas• 5 years ago

I'd be surprised if this weren't a case taken on contingency (that is, where the lawyer only gets paid if the plaintiff wins or gets a settlement). The lawyer could still benefit from fame/notoriety even if they lose, but their incentives are generally aligned with the plaintiff's.

xxpor2• 5 years ago

IANAL either, but this isn't nearly as crazy as I thought it'd be based on the headline.

They basically say don't be evil was part of the employment contract (via the code of conduct), the employees fulfilled their obligation to advise Google not to be evil, and then Google fired them.

From wikipedia:

The elements of promissory estoppel are:

* an express or implied promise;

* detrimental reliance by the promisee foreseeable to a reasonable person in the promissor's position;

* actual detrimental reliance by the promisee (worsening of their position); and for specific performance (as opposed to reliance damages), injustice can only be avoided by enforcing the promise.

Point by point:

* Google promised to not be evil because every employee (including the CEO and members of the board) agrees to the code of conduct.

* The promisee (employees) relied on that when they made their decition to work at google and enter the contract. That was reasonably foreseeable by the promissor (Google).

* The employees actually did rely on the promise when they took the job, and circulated the petition to not be evil, since they were promised all employees agreed to it. No comment on the specific performance remedy since I didn't read that far to see if that's what they're demanding.

Obviously there's points in there that could be reasonably debated, but it seems not-crazy enough to make it past a motion to dismiss.

AlbertCory10• 5 years ago

Sounds like the lawyer is taking them for a ride on their dime, imo.

Assuming she's not on contingency, or getting paid by some external group.

ycombigator• 5 years ago

We're here talking about it though.

defen• 5 years ago

I've heard of many big companies not wanting to use JSON-license licensed software for this reason (too much legal risk) - https://www.json.org/license.html

toast0• 5 years ago

Douglas Crockford has been very willing to give special license to use things for evil; you just have to ask. (May not be good enough for Debian, I guess)

lovemenot2• 5 years ago

To save others the trouble, here's the relevant section:

The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Ekaros• 5 years ago

I wonder which side is required to define "evil" in this case? Probably Google's lawyers... Might be interesting what they come up with... If it ever gets to that point.

puzzledobserver• 5 years ago

IANAL, but isn't / shouldn't the process be the following: Google's lawyers drafted the employment contract and used the word evil. Now it is up to the employees lawyers to argue for an interpretation of the word, and if that interpretation is reasonable, then it stands?

There is a Wikipedia article about something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem

jcranmer3• 5 years ago

Ignore the media reporting around the lawsuit and turn to the complaint itself (it's linked in the first sentence of the article [1]).

The complaint centers on a Code of Conduct that the employees signed, and then that the employees were terminated for speaking out internally about what they felt was a violation of the "don't be evil" motto. I'm not sufficiently familiar with California employment and contract law to know how much of a leg this case has, but on a quick scan, one of the counts (discrimination due to sexual identity) is dead in motion-to-dismiss phase, one (slander) might survive if amended, and the other three will turn on whether or not the Code of Conduct's statements that employees should speak up about perceived violations of "don't be evil" is enough like a contract to make retaliation in firing because of it a violation of contract.

Notably, it never asks the court to decide if its acts were or were not evil. It's not insane enough to be thrown out immediately, but there's several facts about the Code of Conduct I'd want to learn about that aren't in the complaint.

[1] This should be standard practice for anyone reporting on legal cases, and it frustrates me to no end that it is not.

cormacrelf• 5 years ago

Everyone in this thread should calm down and just read this comment.

comfysocks• 5 years ago

Thanks for posting this. All of the knee-jerk comments are hurting my mind.

dragonwriter7• 5 years ago

I'm not sufficiently familiar with California employment and contract law to know how much of a leg this case has, but on a quick scan, one of the counts (discrimination due to sexual identity) is dead in motion-to-dismiss phase,

No such count exists in the complaint! There is a component of Count V of that type but Count V can stand without it.

That said, the other bits in Count V are also fairly weak, though the sex/orientation/identity one is the weakest.

one (slander) might survive if amended,

Not sure why you say that; while obviously the facts require trial the slander/false light charge seems to make all the necessary claims to establish the tort.

q1w25• 5 years ago

The purpose of the motto isn't to give employees carte-blanche to do whatever they want. It's supposed to be a catch-all for situations that the company has not taken an explicit position on.

If the company says "xyz isn't evil" explicitly, then the motto doesn't give you the right to work against that.

This lawsuit is just childish.

perl4ever• 5 years ago

I would for the sake of argument stipulate that "evil" means something, that a court might be able to adjudicate it, and that CBP does many specific things which might be deemed evil.

However, even given all of that, I do not believe it is possible for Google to exist without being complicit with the overall purpose of CBP.

I don't see any particularly salient dividing line between generically working with them and not.

There might be something evil about the details of the particular project, but if CBP as a whole is evil, I don't comprehend how working with them automatically makes a difference when you are based in the US anyway.

I can swallow "a US court adjudicating which acts are evil" much easier than "a US court adjudicating which major parts of the US government are generally evil".

The latter seems like some sort of propaganda fantasy, a snake eating its tail.

jonas21• 5 years ago

I'd also imagine you'd have a pretty hard time convincing a US court that working with a US government agency is "evil."

dragonwriter7• 5 years ago

I'd also imagine you'd have a pretty hard time convincing a US court that working with a US government agency is "evil."

The case isn't asking a US Court to find that. It is asking a California State Court to find that challenging corporate involvement in a particular federal action on the same moral grounds that the State of California was challenging the underlying federal action at the same time was reasonably either or a combination of (a) within the ambit of an obligation undertaken to raise potential “evil” actions, or (b) legally protected political activity, or (c) legally protected discussion of working conditions.

(And there's a couple other things in it that could succeed even if those all fail, notably the slander charge about knowingly false information spread about involvement in public leaks.)

gruez• 5 years ago

Why not? There's this case that went all the way to the supreme court:

The issue is that, before the 2008 global financial crisis, Goldman had gone around saying things like “our clients’ interests always come first” and “integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business.” Then the global financial crisis occurred, and:
1. It came out that maybe Goldman’s clients’ interests sometimes came second, and maybe integrity and honesty were sometimes not quite at the heart of its business[1]; and
2. Goldman’s stock price went down.
[...]
Perhaps in 2007, investors read in Goldman’s disclosures that “our clients’ interests always come first” and “integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business,” and they thought: “Yes, it is good that Goldman has integrity and puts its clients’ interests first, that is valuable for its business, we will buy the stock.” In 2009, after Abacus and so forth, investors thought “alas, no, Goldman does not have integrity and does not put its clients’ interests first, we are disappointed, we will sell the stock.” In other words, perhaps investors ascribed value to Goldman’s statements about integrity and honesty, and then when they found out that those statements were not true that value went away and the stock went down.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-06-22/money-...

ALittleLight• 5 years ago

This reminds me of lawsuit against Amazon because it's not, actually, always Day 1.

JavaBatman• 5 years ago

The problem with "Don't Be Evil" is that it assumes everyone agrees on what the definition of "evil" is. But that is absolutely not the case. We live in a post-Christian/post-religious society where - aside from the basic human instinct of survival - no one agrees on First Principles. The dominant ideology in society now is Liberalism. And I don't mean American liberalism. I mean actual Liberalism - freedom of speech, expression, assembly, religion, etc. Because of this, there is a diversity of thought and moral relativism, so "evil" means different things to different people. A rural, socially conservative Christian's idea of "evil" will likely be very different than an urban, secular, and progressive definition of "evil." Without a dominant ideology guiding society using a set universal moral code, there will always be conflicts regarding First Principles, different sets of facts, etc.

chickenpotpie2• 5 years ago

We definitely don't live in a post-christian/post-religious society. Lawmakers regularly cite the bible and other religious texts when making laws.

vineyardmike2• 5 years ago

I agree with your point but i'm not sure i agree that people disagree on first principles that much, and i think people mostly pay lip-service to liberalism more than practice and believe it.

gweinberg• 5 years ago

Sure, but there's a huge gap between "we all precisely agree on what 'evil' means and 'nobody has a clue what evil means'.

It's pretty unreasonable for somebody to say "I personally think this is evil so I can't be fired for refusing to do it, even though I'm the only one", but it's a lot more reasonable if most people would agree that it is in fact evil.

I could see a judgement for the former employees if Google were helping an authoritarian government identify and punish dissidents. Working with US customs? Probably not.

sophacles3• 5 years ago

You make a good attempt at joking here, but ultimately fail. Your absurd position: "we live in a post-Crhistian/post-religious society" is just way way too far as an initial gambit. Maybe try toning it down at first? Or alternately going way further at the start. This just hits poe's law too hard.

Flankk• 5 years ago

I think a socially conservative Christian's definition of evil is almost the same as that of a secular progressive. Moral relativism is about using a small grey area as an example for how the massive overlap is wrong.

MisterBastahrd• 5 years ago

Being evil isn't illegal. See: Washington, District of Columbia

marcosdumay• 5 years ago

It's a contract matter, they promised they wouldn't be.

sigzero2• 5 years ago

A motto is not in any way, shape, or form "a contract".

DwnVoteHoneyPot2• 5 years ago

I guess other companies now will be wary of adding altruistic goals. No good deeds go unpunished.

another-dave• 5 years ago

In fairness "Don't be evil" isn't really a meaningful goal, it's so vague as to be meaningless. E.g. I'd be surprised if any decision got reversed because it went against it.

b8• 5 years ago

Well the definition of evil is being immortal and wicked. https://stallman.org/google.html has a list of many wicked things that Google has done and there's many others. So maybe they could use some of those things as proof that Google has betrayed the DBE motto. I doubt that anything will come of of this or that a judge won't dismiss this in a quick matter.

scandox• 5 years ago

Google can easily prove they were evil even at the time they first deployed that corporate motto.

It's interesting to me that we fell for this at the time. I mean if someone says to you at a party "I'm a nice guy" well it's obvious they're a bloody monster...but a corporation doing the same thing and early noughties me is like "well that sounds nice".

noizejoy• 5 years ago

It’s actually worth to RTFA, since it gives additional context of employment contracts, activism and firing.

amelius• 5 years ago

Reminds me of the JSLint case, where the author said "this software can't be used for evil", and then a bunch of lawyers from IBM couldn't figure out what "evil" meant and demanded a change in the license.

slownews452• 5 years ago

I thought they were fired for somehow getting chrome to pop-up notices when visiting the website of a google contractor that was anti-union.

I mean, I like the effort, but... it's unlikely that an employer is going to want to pay employees to do things they don't want to have done?

"Her suspension began just three hours after she published a piece of code that created a pop-up notification when Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants"

I'm curious how one even gets chrome to monitor and pop up a notice when google folks visit a website. If it was some kind of ad that seems OK. If she used google's infrastructure to push a popup to all google employees... do other businesses permit this? Can a chase employee push something to all chase.com users alerting them to something they care about?

tdeck2• 5 years ago

IIRC they added it to one of the utility extensions that many Google employees install, although I no longer recall which one.

slownews452• 5 years ago

Fascinating. You'd think you'd have to be in some kind of security type role to be able to do this if they had access / control over an extension on google employee computers.

Kind of funny seeing maybe some google naivete and the "do no evil" thing come back to bite google.

When I was in high school I had a fair bit of fun going outside the permitted guidelines. By college I'd developed a reasonable sense of boundaries with other folks equipment / jobs with a trust element.

If I pushed a pop-up notice out company wide with a message my employer didn't approve of, I'd definitely be expecting to be going out the door rather than doing the litigation process.

Having worked a bit in govt interesting to see the NLRB pursue this, in govt my experience was a REDICULOUSLY dim view would be taken of something like this.

DwnVoteHoneyPot2• 5 years ago

I feel this case will backfire on the ex-employees. Instead of explaining the evil that Google is doing, it'll put focus on why the employees were fired. I'm sure that Google has a very detailed file on reasons for the firing (vs. just laying them off etc.) and those reasons were review by lawyers.

Google's revenge will be to display those reasons every time a potential employer google's their names.

AnimalMuppet• 5 years ago

"Don't be evil" != "must let me use their platform for my personal moral crusade", though...

dharmab• 5 years ago

Relation: The JSLint license has a clause stating that it shall not be used for evil. IBM has obtained a license to be able to use JSLint for evil, presumably to avoid this type of suit: https://youtu.be/-C-JoyNuQJs?t=41m20s

pillowkusis• 5 years ago

Google fired the three workers... for "clear and repeated violations" of the company's data security policies. The four deny they accessed and leaked confidential documents...

Surely if they can prove they didn't leak anything (or Google can't prove they did), they would have an easy wrongful termination lawsuit? They wouldn't need to sue on these flimsy grounds?

vineyardmike2• 5 years ago

If you whistle-blow when your company does "evil" things... and you're fired for being "evil" (company claims whistleblowing is evil) then this could actually be a case with more merit than "that big company is evil but they said they werent" which is how most people are reading the title.

whoknowswhat11• 5 years ago

In this case a security person appears to have used their position to change chrome for google users to display a message when they visited a website of a contractor google was working with (that was anti-union, the employee presumably being pro-union).

This sounds like a stunt someone who hadn't gone to college yet might pull, but this person was a google engineer in a position of trust / authority - not sure how the google hiring process works but she made it in.

I mean, no business is going to willing let one employee hijack the browser used by their users to spread a message the company doesn't like. Most businesses make this very clear - you can't use company resource to spread your messages (political, MLM, side hustles, religious etc).

sct202• 5 years ago

The NLRB originally dismissed their claims but this year sort of reversed and said that Google 'arguably violated' labor laws by firing them.

Laremere• 5 years ago

It seems the title is implying that the people suing think Google had an obligation to not be evil because that was its motto.

Reading the article, the lawsuit is about something more reasonable: They signed an employee code of conduct which included "Don't Be Evil". They organized a movement within Google in pursuit of contractually obligated motto, and believe they were fired for doing this organizing.

Say you were hired as security. You signed a contract stating you wouldn't let anyone enter the building who doesn't have a valid employee id. One day a VP forgets his ID at home, and puts you in a tough spot. Fearing you'd be fired because you violated your contract, you deny the VP access to the building. The VP is mad, and gets revenge on you by getting you fired. In this case, suing the company for following the rules it made you follow seems reasonable.

The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague. I'm unsure it will have enough standing to succeed, but it's not entirely unreasonable.

henryfjordan3• 5 years ago

Vagueness is to be construed against the drafter of the contract, Google in this case.

nickff• 5 years ago

I believe that only applies to contracts of adhesion (in most areas), though this contract may be one of adhesion. The presumption would probably be taken to mean that the employee couldn't be fired 'with cause' for 'being evil', but I don't know how you'd prove Google was 'being evil'. This is tantamount to accusing someone of fraud for saying that they 'were nice', but then not 'being nice'.

xyproto• 5 years ago

That's a clever rule. Does most justice systems in the world have this?

skynetv2• 5 years ago

There is no case here. There is no specificity to "Don't be evil" as its very subjective.

Eelongate8• 5 years ago

Might Google settle anyway, just to avoid arguing in court, in front of the public, that "don't be evil" never meant anything in the first place?

sbussard• 5 years ago

This lawsuit won’t go anywhere. “Don’t be evil” is not a contract, and if it was, they’ll have to convince the court that their definition of evil is the one true definition. This is really just a publicity stunt to get Google to settle to prevent PR damages. It’s highly unlikely that they have any incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing as defined by law.

btown• 5 years ago

I'm not sure this is true. I'm not a lawyer, but it certainly seems that in e.g. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/first-circuit/malice-requ... courts may consider the notion of "evil" as even more concrete and fundamental than the definition of "malice." Sure, settlement may be the likely outcome, but there's not a zero chance of success on the merits.

karaterobot• 5 years ago

The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague. I'm unsure it will have enough standing to succeed, but it's not entirely unreasonable.

As will be made obvious by the following comment, I am not a lawyer. But, I always think of the modern judicial system as staying away from saying some particular action is "evil" in the moral sense, rather than just illegal, or even ethically wrong in some cases. I think it would really be something if the court admitted a specific definition of evil for the purposes of deciding on this case. In my view of the world, that kind of thing would need a philosophical or theological basis, which you'd think would then be enshrined, to some extent, in precedent. I doubt anything like that would actually happen in this case, but it would sure be weird if it did.

daenz2• 5 years ago

What does "be" mean? Does it mean "act" or does it mean "exist"? Can a person do something evil without "being" evil? Can you be evil without doing anything evil (yet)? These are questions for philosophers to contemplate, not angry employees who were fired (in their eyes) unjustly.

To me, it's a cash grab masquerading as something more virtuous. They better hope they get a big payout, enough to last them for a long time, because regardless they will be branded as troublemakers who aren't worth the risk of employing.

rp1• 5 years ago

Prior to this lawsuit, what did you take the old Google motto to mean? Personally, I took it to mean don’t commit evil acts [as a company]. Obviously you can pick it apart now, but it wasn’t derided as some ambiguous concept prior to this lawsuit.

asdfasgasdgasdg5• 5 years ago

The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague.

They're going to have an extremely uphill battle to fight if this is the basis of their legal argument. No reasonable person could understand the phrase, "Don't Be Evil," to mean, "Don't do things that I personally consider evil." For example, I very much doubt that a court is going to find that Customs and Border Protection is "evil," and thus any actions the plaintiffs took against Google's dealings with CBP were contractually mandated by the employment agreement.

To the extent that this is a headache for Google at all, it will serve as a great example as to why legalese and corporate-speak is so common in the U.S. Google tried to have a motto that, while legally ambiguous, expressed a sentiment about how they wanted to treat their users and act in the marketplace. There will be different opinions about how well Google lives up to the motto, but certainly at the time it was coined, that was the idea behind it. And now they're getting sued, essentially frivolously, over the language. If it causes them a problem, it's a lesson to other companies: avoid mottos that are subject to creative and motivated interpretation during litigation. Or to put it another way, don't have mottos.

mpd3• 5 years ago

No reasonable person could understand the phrase, "Don't Be Evil," to mean, "Don't do things that I personally consider evil."

TBH, I think almost everyone treats the former statement, as meaning the latter. Did you mistype here?

Maybe there's even something different about using "evil" here, specifically. Would another word have a different outcome?

chickenpotpie2• 5 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem

Ambiguity in a contract benefits the party that did not draft it

Talanes2• 5 years ago

Or to put it another way, don't have mottos.

Having a motto is fine. Asking your employees to comply with a completely vague and subjective objective in their employment contract is asking for trouble, however.

geofft• 5 years ago

You can see the whole legal argument - it's linked from the first sentence of the article, and it quotes the relevant section of the employee code of conduct: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21119310-google_comp...

“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information. focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services we can. But it's also about doing the right thing more generally ~ following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect.

That is pretty specific. You need to provide users unbiased access to information, focus on their needs, and give them the best products and services you can. You also need to follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect.

The courts do in fact understand legally-binding terms to mean something. (See also the fact that IBM's lawyers sought a specific exemption from the JSON license's "The Software shall be used for Good, and not Evil," because they knew there was a chance the courts would find something they did "Evil," because if it's in a contract, it means something.) So what do they mean?

Some of these clauses - "giving them the best products and services we can," "acting honorably," etc. - are a little squishy. But "providing our users unbiased access to information" is pretty clear-cut.

The plaintiffs organized against Dragonfly, a censored version of Google that would provide users biased access to information. IMO they've got a pretty good case that the employee handbook, which they had to abide by to keep their job, told them to do that.

TheCoelacanth3• 5 years ago

Surely if a company policy is vague, that should be the company's problem, not the employees.

If employees made a good faith effort to follow a vague policy and were fired for that, it seems like wrongful termination to me.

If the company doesn't like the way employees are interpreting the policy, then they shouldn't have such a ludicrously vague policy.

DoneWithAllThat• 5 years ago

No, the problem is it’s flatly ridiculous to claim an employee code of conduct binds the company. What in the hell.

edmundsauto• 5 years ago

For public companies, this can be considered securities fraud - in the Matt Levine sense.

dragonwriter7• 5 years ago

No, the problem is it’s flatly ridiculous to claim an employee code of conduct binds the company

Not only is it not ridiculous, but that employment policies like CoC’s generally constitute binding contracts (which, inherently, bind both parties) is fairly well established in employment law.

teh_infallible• 5 years ago

I think the idea is that if the employee is bound to the code of conduct, the company shouldn’t be able to force the employee to act in a way that violates it.

benatkin• 5 years ago

The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague.

That should be Google's problem. It would have been better if they had never stated that intention. They used it to ingratiate themselves to Mozilla and Linux users.

umvi• 5 years ago

The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague.

Exactly, depending on your political viewpoint, "Don't Be Evil" could mean some/all of the following:

- Not doing business with China

- Not doing business with ICE

- Not doing business with any government

- Not doing business with any other business that has currently-employed "evil" (politically incorrect) employees

- Not building ad-tech

- Not building free products where the monetization model involves user tracking

- Not hiring enough minorities

- Not firing "evil" employees (employees who are politically incorrect, who voted for X evil candidate, who don't fall in line with "good" thought/speech, etc)

asdfasgasdgasdg5• 5 years ago

It could even mean the opposite of each of these, depending on your perspective.

- Maybe it's evil to do business in China, because it requires you to censor search results.

- Or maybe it's evil not to, because you deprive Chinese people of an important utility, and you don't actually make them better off in any other way.

- Maybe doing business with ICE is evil, because kids in cages.

- Or maybe avoiding ICE is evil, because it's unpatriotic or undemocratic!

Every single one of these actions or inactions could be construed to be evil depending upon one's personal values, moral code, or even one's understanding of various contested facts involved in the decision-making!

q1w25• 5 years ago

The point of a motto like this is to provide guidance when there's no specific company guidance.

When the company publicly says they will do business with China, the vague motto doesn't allow you to refuse to do you job.

protomyth• 5 years ago

They signed an employee code of conduct which included "Don't Be Evil".

The employee code of conduct, that they were made to sign as a condition of employment has the directive "Don't Be Evil" in it? Did Google legal review that document? Although often made fun of, there is a reason IBM legal required a license change in JSLint to get out of its "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." license clause. Heck, Google Code wouldn't host JSMin-PHP because of that clause ( https://wonko.com/post/jsmin-isnt-welcome-on-google-code ).

dragonwriter7• 5 years ago

They signed an employee code of conduct which included "Don't Be Evil"

No, the more key part is: “[...] everything we do in connection with our work at Google will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct. [...] And if you have a question or ever think that one of your fellow Googlers or the company as a whole may be falling short of our commitment, don’t be silent.”

There legal allegation is not that the company action was evil. It’s that it was reasonably within the realm of subjectively questionable conduct that the company had, in a binding contract with employees, demanded to be alerted to when employees had concerns, and that therefore retaliating against employees for their internal action consistent with that binding agreement is illegal.

AlbertCory10• 5 years ago

Wrong on every count.

"movement within Google in pursuit of contractually obligated motto"

is factually wrong, and that's what my post demonstrated. They started a movement that had nothing to do with what "don't be evil" meant. It didn't mean "justice for immigrants."

"The VP is mad, and gets revenge on you by getting you fired"

Also bogus. This sort of thing did happen, and the security guards were celebrated, not fired. Any VP who tried this would himself (or herself) get fired.

"The problem here is "Don't Be Evil" is so vague"

Wrong. Contract terms are construed by the law. Since Google wrote the contract, their interpretation tends to govern.

sokoloff• 5 years ago

Since Google wrote the contract, their interpretation tends to govern.

Contra proferentem (Latin: "against [the] offeror"), also known as "interpretation against the draftsman", is a doctrine of contractual interpretation providing that, where a promise, agreement or term is ambiguous, the preferred meaning should be the one that works against the interests of the party who provided the wording.

Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem

Note that CA has adopted this.

I don’t think “don’t be evil” was part of the employment contract, but if it was, Google would likely wish it weren’t in this case.

skeeter20202• 5 years ago

If I worked for Nike could I use "Just Do It" to justify any lapse in judgement? Promote conspiracy theories because Apple tells me to "Think Different"? Be a giant prick at work because EA tells me to "Challenge everything"? Seek damages because "Red Bull gives you wings" didn't literally deliver? Ignore Covid public health protocols because my employer KFC states "It’s finger-lickin’ good"?

This is pretty thin material, specially because they were fired after repeated correction that clarified what they were doing was out of sync with any generic motto.

Eelongate8• 5 years ago

Were any of those other corporate mottos in the code of conducts they made employees sign?

kodah• 5 years ago

What work was Google doing for CBP? I didn't see that mentioned.

joshspankit• 5 years ago

I wish we had more ability to public remove the bias in titles through effort like this.

This reply is on-point, addresses my immediate suspicion, counters an (assumably intentional) attempt to spread a negative narrative, and is excellently reasoned.

unyttigfjelltol• 5 years ago

NPR indicates the key substantive issue is whether the workers improperly leaked data. The workers say they didn't, factually, leak data (apparently). The 'Evil' bit would allow the workers to present evidence at trial of the substantive right or wrong of what Google was doing, whereas it's irrelevant to vanilla issues of data security. Attorneys structure complaints like this every day of the week, and it's functioning precisely as intended-- NPR ran an article about 'Evil'.

AlbertCory10• 5 years ago

(Disclaimer: I wasn't there at the very beginning. I joined in Nov. 2005 when the motto was already in place.)

The origin of "don't be evil" had nothing to do with politics. It had to do, especially, with selling search placement, which was something that search engines before Google regularly did. Whether you bought ads on Search or not had no bearing on where you came out in the Search results, and you can doubt that all you like but it was true.

I'm not AS sure about this one, but another evil practice which inspired the slogan was: giving preference to your own products in search results. Google didn't need to do that back in the day, because it didn't really HAVE any other products. It pretty definitely succumbed to that evil once it had some.

If the case is not tossed, the judge will probably construe the term for the jury, similar to how a patent claim is construed. The two sides will fight over the construction, but the judge's ruling will stand. I'm pretty sure he'd construe "don't be evil" by what it meant to Google, and not what the three ex-employees thought. If they were in doubt, they could have asked.

titzer3• 5 years ago

It had to do, especially, with selling search placement, which was something that search engines before Google regularly did. Whether you bought ads on Search or not had no bearing on where you came out in the Search results, and you can doubt that all you like but it was true.

Which, with the slow boil of reducing the yellow background of ads down to next to nothing, then moving them ahead of results, and slowly fading the background to nothing, whittling the little "Ad" chip down to nothing [1], is today exactly what Google is doing.

[1] https://www.webprofits.com.au/blog/google-search-change

another evil practice which inspired the slogan was: giving preference to your own products in search results.

Which it absolutely does, and did worse (sued in EU over Google shopping results).

I joined in 2010. At no point did I ever drink the koolaid that Google would ever really live up to this vague ideal, but I was, at the time, impressed by how ethical and careful the company seemed to be. That completely changed, little by little, and I lost that trust, or rather, that trust was broken and slowly evaporated. Today, Google is a behemoth that will seemingly stop at nothing to keep that 20% YoY gravy train going. It's getting ridiculous. They're paving over cyberspace with ads and gobbling every profitable thing and potential competitor. They won't be stopping the growth mindset. The self deception at the top is staggering. Google is becoming everything the internet never should have been.

Groxx• 5 years ago

The ad marker isn't even colored any more, it's just plain text: "Ad · https://..."

asddubs• 5 years ago

although ads clearly do sell search placement, only that those placements are separate and labelled as ads. although over the years the notice that a result is an ad was made less and less obvious. remember when ad results had a yellow background?

MereInterest• 5 years ago

Was it just my memory, or were the ads also restricted to the columns to the side of the results, not being within the column containing the results?

bborud• 5 years ago

While I was there (about a year later) I can remember it being used generally in meetings to judge if something was ethical. I can remember things being nixed (by engineers) for being too “evil”.

Some of those things would probably be okay today - now that Mr Zuckerberg has moved the goalposts for how creepy a company can allow itself to get - and everyone must follow or risk losing out.

ksec• 5 years ago

The origin of "don't be evil" had nothing to do with politics.

- "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" - Somebody

- "Most evil are created by those who think themselves as so righteous" - Me

It doesn't really matter what are their intentions. The moment you label yourself as "no evil" ( or Saint ) is the moment some people will absolutely scrutinise the heck out of you. To some ( if not many ) on HN, the act of selling ads itself is "evil".

I will add this Tech / Silicon Valley startup "saving the world" as the force of "Good" started with Google. When the media and PR were hyping Google could do no wrong. Further helping to enhance its image as Saint. ( And possibly good for hiring ). At least I dont see it during IBM or Microsoft era.

It is nice this finally backfire, only 20 years too late. Not sure if I will see the days of things backfire from Apple. I am already old.

skeeter20202• 5 years ago

> If they were in doubt, they could have asked.

Would the fact that they were disciplined repeatedly for their actions and told they were unacceptable be construed as guidance that they were out of line with the intent of "don't be evil"? It doesn't sound like they were fired on the spot but rather reprimanded on numerous occasions which Google most certainly documented. This would all be shared openly in a trial which would likely paint a pretty poor picture of the individuals.

AlbertCory10• 5 years ago

If you go into a proceeding like this, you can expect Google to smear you worse than you ever imagined. I'm not defending this practice, but that's what they'll do.

1cvmask• 5 years ago

Seems Google employees might now have two ways of making money. Once while at Google. And then suing Google after leaving. If they prevail I expect that a lot of other companies will become targets.

thisisauserid• 5 years ago

Cute!

mrkramer• 5 years ago

And what is the definition of evil according to them? Showing ads to users. Then let's sue the whole freaking internet.

Thorentis• 5 years ago

In the Code of Conduct they signed, was "evil" actually defined? Usually contracts go to great lengths to define every single term that is used, even obvious ones. If "evil" was not defined, then who gets to decide its definition for the purposes of enforcing the contract, the writer, or the signer?

TheCoelacanth3• 5 years ago

Ambiguous contract terms are taken to mean whatever is most detrimental to the writer.

mountainb3• 5 years ago

The people who will win this are the lawyers. The plaintiffs will not win.

metta2uall• 5 years ago

Oh, I thought this was about Google encouraging the rampant consumerism that is causing so much environmental degradation...

bagels2• 5 years ago

The premise of the lawsuit seems flawed.

The code of conduct or a motto is not a contract. The code of conduct generally limits the conduct of the employee, and does not create obligations for the company. When "Don't be Evil" is in the code of conduct, it only suggest that the employee should not engage in evil behavior, but doesn't preclude the company from doing so, and doesn't implicitly allow all non-evil behavior by the employee.

marcinzm2• 5 years ago

It seems the code of conduct in this case said employees should raise issues to Google. The claim is that google then fired employees for raising issues around google being evil. It has absolutely zero to do with Google actually doing evil or not doing evil.

bagels2• 5 years ago

I don't see in the article that the code of conduct asked employees to call out the company. Maybe you have some other source or have read the complaint? The facts in the article make the suit seem meritless.

karmasimida• 5 years ago

Is there a valid legal standing to this? I doubt it.

Manuel_D• 5 years ago

The trio say they thought they were behaving in accordance with that principle when they organized Google employees against controversial projects, such as work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Trump administration. The workers circulated a petition calling on Google to publicly commit to not working with CBP.

Plenty of people don't subscribe to the belief that it's evil to detain people illegally entering a country. Try overstaying your tourist visa in another country: you'll be arrested, then deported. Same deal with doing Pentagon contracts, as mentioned later in the article. Not everyone subscribes to the belief that any defense-related work is evil. I seriously doubt that this will even be allowed to get to court.

This lawsuit seems more like activism than a credible legal challenge.

spaceflunky• 5 years ago

You'd be surprised how many Google employees have a warped view of the company or even that of what a business is suppose to do.

There are some people with the org that would genuinely debate you as to whether making a profit (any kind of profit) is a good or bad thing.

rmah2• 5 years ago

Haha, this is funny. On one hand, I can't help feel a bit of schadenfreude for Google being harassed with this frivolous lawsuit because of their obviously self-indulgent motto. On the other hand, it is a bit sad that the county even accepted such a frivolous lawsuit. On the gripping hand, I don't like the sort of people who pretend to be shocked SHOCKED! that the motto was nothing but a fig leaf. So it's weirdly uncomfortable feelings for me all around.

thisiswater• 5 years ago

While I can't speak to the case, I have anecdotally known PhD-level researchers who have cited "don't be evil" as part of their decisions to trust Google with potentially sensitive data. The phrase has clout.

This has been official policy. It seems like more than a motto at that point.

rmah2• 5 years ago

I don't understand how anyone can reach early adulthood and actually take such drivel from a corporation at face value. As you say, clearly such people exist. It just mystifies me.

tonetheman• 5 years ago

This appears to morons trying to get money for being morons.

RickJWagner• 5 years ago

I do think Google does evil things.

But not the same things the ex-employees are protesting.

I guess it's subjective.

Ex-Google workers sue company, saying it betrayed 'Don't Be Evil' motto

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