Great title, makes me want to be biased when I read the article.
Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
61–70 of 772 posts
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#62It seems like the NLRB is alleging that it is or should be illegal to have a policy against employees spying on each other for non-business reasons at work and using company tools?
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#63That 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…
How was it an unrelated extension?
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#64That 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…
> Didn't she inject code into an unrelated internal extension? Depending on your definition of code, that's probably not the case. She added an entry to a config file that contained a mapping of urls to messages. Such as: dropbox.com/upload -> Friendly reminder: please don't upload internal documents to dropbox Also, Google generally trusts engineers and it's not that unusual to have an engineer writing and deploying…
> There's also an argument that she used some sort of "emergency" deployment mechanism, but that doesn't really hold water either. Honestly it's not that unusual to see people deploy some package when they need it rather than wait for a scheduled job to deploy it.
I disagree. The emergency process was highly unusual, in that it had never been done before for this extension, and was very rarely done in general. Triggering a deploy is normal, triggering a deploy that goes immediately to 100% is not.
> essentially it was her job to work on and deploy this extension
The extension wasn't something she had previously worked on.
> I believe that had the message been an April fools day joke she wouldn't have been fired.
I agree, and don't think she should have been fired for this either.
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm not. I'm explicitly saying you should discuss X. Adding Y just muddies the discussion.
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#66One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google vie…
100% agree. People laugh at me why I carry two phones but this is the main reason. If my employer needs me to have a mobile phone they are paying for separate device and plan. It’s a little silly I need to carry 2 phones around but it makes my life so much more convenient. Unknown call on my work phone guess I’ll answer. If it’s on my personal then it’s spam. Leave company, no need to update or port my number. Want t…
With android work profiles I don't think it's that big a deal.
It's isolated from my phone, my employer can't see anything outside the profile and I just disable it on weekends/vacations.
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#67One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google vie…
Best Buy did this when they released their employee app. In signing up for it, it said they had the ability to view everything on the phone, and to wipe it clean if need be. I used my employee discount to buy a cheap secondary phone with no SIM to use in the store, and eventually decided not to load the app even onto that.
We need "permissions" for employment, a standardized listing of privileges you give up when you sign your employment contract. If your employer breaches this, you get a fat payout courtesy the NLRB. You could say, "Sounds like you should just read your employment contract," and I would reply, "Sure, and I guess we don't really need Miranda rights either."
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#68One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google vie…
Exactly. If they want you available on the move, buy you a new phone that is only for work.
Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#69One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google vie…
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Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
#70Man! What did she expect, treading into unionization topics on company systems?