Google really is evil, claims ex-employee lawsuit
Claiming that their treatment goes against the famous "don't be evil" clause in Google's employee code of conduct, three former employees are suing the company.
Google offices
Google once famously had "Don't Be Evil" as its motto, but it still retains those words as a clause in the contract that employees have to sign. Now this code of conduct and those specific words are the subject of a lawsuit.
According to Vice, Rebecca Rivers, Paul Duke, and Sophie Waldman, were fired from Google within minutes of each other on November 25, 2019. Google said that the three had each leaked information, and had used "systematic searches" for information "outside the scope of their job."
However, the three ex-software engineers say that the real reason for their firing was because of their protests against the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. At the time, the CBP was caging migrants and separating parents from children, but Google had decided to sell cloud computing software to the agency.
Rivers, Duke, and Waldman circulated a company-wide petition asking Google to not work with CBP or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies.
They each claim this was specifically in line with Google's own code of conduct, which says: "if you see something you think isn't right - speak up!"
"Rivers, Waldman and Duke each engaged in activities consistent with Google's 'Don't be evil' contractual obligation," states the lawsuit as seen by Vice. "Specifically, they questioned Google management regarding its intent to enter into a contract with the Trump administration's Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and/or Office of Refugee Resettlement agencies."
The three ex-employees are already engaged in a National Labor Relations Board lawsuit. That claims Google illegally fired them for engaging in labor organizing activity.
Google has not commented publicly on the new suit.
As long ago as 2013, before it moved the "Don't Be Evil" line into a contract clause, Google was facing criticism over its alleged "evil" actions.
Read on AppleInsider
Google offices
Google once famously had "Don't Be Evil" as its motto, but it still retains those words as a clause in the contract that employees have to sign. Now this code of conduct and those specific words are the subject of a lawsuit.
According to Vice, Rebecca Rivers, Paul Duke, and Sophie Waldman, were fired from Google within minutes of each other on November 25, 2019. Google said that the three had each leaked information, and had used "systematic searches" for information "outside the scope of their job."
However, the three ex-software engineers say that the real reason for their firing was because of their protests against the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. At the time, the CBP was caging migrants and separating parents from children, but Google had decided to sell cloud computing software to the agency.
Rivers, Duke, and Waldman circulated a company-wide petition asking Google to not work with CBP or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies.
They each claim this was specifically in line with Google's own code of conduct, which says: "if you see something you think isn't right - speak up!"
"Rivers, Waldman and Duke each engaged in activities consistent with Google's 'Don't be evil' contractual obligation," states the lawsuit as seen by Vice. "Specifically, they questioned Google management regarding its intent to enter into a contract with the Trump administration's Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and/or Office of Refugee Resettlement agencies."
The three ex-employees are already engaged in a National Labor Relations Board lawsuit. That claims Google illegally fired them for engaging in labor organizing activity.
Google has not commented publicly on the new suit.
As long ago as 2013, before it moved the "Don't Be Evil" line into a contract clause, Google was facing criticism over its alleged "evil" actions.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
companies claim “leaked information”. Of what? The next knockoff Siri or knockoff iPad?
Stupid.
Really? Maybe you should check facts. It started with CBP orders in Obama era. Nobody seemed to care long before 2019 or even 2016. Also as many DNA tests showed, most of those adults were not relatives and only used children for trafficking. That is why they were separated from adults for their own safety and not in cage but in well equipped children centers. The material was published when some visited those centers, but media seem to go with different political narrative skipping facts. What acting AOC in front of "cage" made impressions on people? She is a good actor too.
In other words, there’s nothing to be gained by trying to frame Google’s corporate policies and decisions within the scope of capitalism versus socialism. Nobody can wrap their heads around that in a meaningful way, much less in a way that can be expressed in a comment section of an Apple centric tech site. However, the question of whether employees should be able to compel the company that they work for, and are beholden to for a paycheck, to alter how and who the company sells its products and services to is actually something that those of us who’ve been employees and also have a notion of what we consider to be ethical and moral norms in our mind can wrap our head around. This is a far narrower scope and closer to our individual experience.
The Google case is kind of subtle because they are not, for example, a DOD contractor building weapon systems or supplying arsenal for the military, i.e., a cog in the military-industrial complex. I’d assume that anyone taking a job with a company that is part of the military-industrial complex, law enforcement, intelligence, espionage, prison systems, etc., knows what and who the company they’ve signed-on with is dealing with before they accept the job. A software developer with a company like Google, maybe not so much.
So it comes down to what you’d do in a similar position. I don’t know for certain what I would do, but I do know that I wouldn’t go on a public campaign to shame the company for not living up to my personal concerns. Every company has public messaging that is aspirational, like claiming to be a “great place to work.” You know what, some of those companies turn out to be very shitty places to work. If that bothers you, hit the road and don’t look back. Or you can press the issue and get fired. But again, making a big public stink about it isn’t going to move the needle either way, and certainly not in your favor. Like is too short. Time to move on.
And, just for future reference, I'll point out to you that Marx was very concerned with the ethics of Capitalism.
Agreed. I certainly wasn't trying to argue that the world needs to change to socialism because of Google's decisions (as was interpreted by Macie).