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Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

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Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#11
post #7
post #3

[flagged]

> His Orangeness Please refrain from insults. Nearly half of the voters voted for him. There are plenty of his supporters here and this is offensive to them.

Half the nation may have voted for him but referring to the orange man in a way that does not also signal that you disapprove is a one way ticket to down-votes on the orange website.

It's a really fine line to walk for those who are inclined to do so.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#12

>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?

Fuck what she used the tool for. At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#13

That headline does not match the article contents. That is definitely the headline from the article, but it simply repeats the claim and doesn't even link to the complaint or provide ANY details. > Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? That sounds like a legit security issue no matter how just…

If she had injected a BitCoin miner, for personal profit, that would have been an entirely different situation, wouldn't it?

Not sure why you are being downvoted. You've (correctly) pointed out that the parent comment has constructed a strawman to punch at, rather than the actual events.

Arguments of the form, "Person did X. Imagine if they had done Y! (Where Y is some obviously unethical thing.)" are fallacious and they lead the discussion to useless dead ends. The point is that the person did do X, and NOT Y.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#14

>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?

A little more than that even. They have the right to participate in concerted activities. But those activities must usually be performed in a way that would not impact the business during working hours. Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#15
post #14

>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?

A little more than that even. They have the right to participate in concerted activities. But those activities must usually be performed in a way that would not impact the business during working hours. Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site.

> Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site.

Sounds like a non profit startup opportunity, to provide tools to empower workers to unionize and vote remotely. With remote normalizing, as long as you stay off corp gear (stay off corp gear for any activities not directly related to your employment!), your employer isn't going to know you're working towards organizing, preventing them from interfering with your organizing activities (which does them a favor, considering that's illegal under US labor law).

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#16

That headline does not match the article contents. That is definitely the headline from the article, but it simply repeats the claim and doesn't even link to the complaint or provide ANY details. > Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? That sounds like a legit security issue no matter how just…

"Injecting code," is not the way I'd describe making changes to a product that it's your job to maintain.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she had injected a BitCoin miner, for personal profit, that would have been an entirely different situation, wouldn't it?

Not sure why you are being downvoted. You've (correctly) pointed out that the parent comment has constructed a strawman to punch at, rather than the actual events. Arguments of the form, "Person did X. Imagine if they had done Y! (Where Y is some obviously unethical thing.)" are fallacious and they lead the discussion to useless dead ends. The point is that the person did do X, and NOT Y.

vorpalhex is stating action X was wrong in the first place, and describing a situation Y as an example to show why action X is wrong.

I have policies at my workplace that disallow something because it's impractical to judge every single situation and then have to deal with the gray area.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#18
post #7
post #3

[flagged]

> His Orangeness Please refrain from insults. Nearly half of the voters voted for him. There are plenty of his supporters here and this is offensive to them.

What? Are you suggesting we cannot criticize politicians on this website because it might be insulting to their supporters?

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#19
post #8

>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?

"Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities" is not a personal political opinion, it is the law.

If you want to play that game, you could spam people with the text of all sorts of interesting laws. It's still an abuse of authority.

But I wonder if anyone would be have been fired if it were an April fools prank?

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#20
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she had injected a BitCoin miner, for personal profit, that would have been an entirely different situation, wouldn't it?

Not sure why you are being downvoted. You've (correctly) pointed out that the parent comment has constructed a strawman to punch at, rather than the actual events. Arguments of the form, "Person did X. Imagine if they had done Y! (Where Y is some obviously unethical thing.)" are fallacious and they lead the discussion to useless dead ends. The point is that the person did do X, and NOT Y.

But X is also unethical. Not sure why you're seemingly ignoring that.
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