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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

#331

Post by alacombe »

throwaway667555 wrote: post #302
alacombe wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. This isn't a solution, but a covert work-around.

Upon re-reading, I too wonder if Google means they'll rootkit any employee phone that comes onto company property. I hope they only rootkit phones with proprietary data on them. Also, super important context: Of all the companies in the world, which ones would have employees, say, designing a rootkit to exfiltrate trade secrets, or for fun, or...? Google, certainly. So I get Google's position, as long as you're allow…

> designing a rootkit to exfiltrate trade secrets, or for fun

Exfiltrating data is comically trivial, it wouldn't be any fun...

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

#332

Post by boomboomsubban »

milesvp wrote: post #307
twblalock wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past. Are you kidding? Salaries have never been higher in tech. Senior engineers make more than $400k (sometimes way more) at Google and other large companies. It is likely that engineers at FAANG companies would make less money if they join a union, because the union would level…

Maybe. This is how I've felt about unions since the grad students tried to unionize at my university, and all the hard science grad students would have lower salaries if the union came to fruition. So it's an effect that I would expect in general if good devs get grouped in with non devs. However, a former roomate's father owned a construction company and I was talked to him about unions once. I took the stance that…

>This is how I've felt about unions since the grad students tried to unionize at my university, and all the hard science grad students would have lower salaries if the union came to fruition

How would they know what their salaries would be if they chose to unionize?

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

#333

Post by ardy42 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #264
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think they'd offer the guy a job still, but without the contract changes, instead of immediately pulling out. It sounds like he was firm, but given a chance to take the job without said changes, he may still have accepted. Geez. It is unreasonable and in bad faith to completely like a candidate and then reject them for merely asking for a contract change.

It sounds like he didn't just ask for a contract change: He simply crossed it out and expected them to take it. I'm honestly surprised people do that. I always go with the assumption that a job offer comes with the implication that you agree to the legal stuff as you are signing it: If you don't, you have refused the job. If you don't agree to something that has been updated, you have quit. The only thing that might…

> It sounds like he didn't just ask for a contract change: He simply crossed it out and expected them to take it.

I believe that's how one typically asks for contract changes.

https://blog.pandadoc.com/what-is-contract-redlining-and-con...:

> The term “redlining” commonly refers to the editing and negotiation process during document and business contract management where contributors mark text and track changes collaboratively. As part of the redlining process, one party receives the document and makes additions or annotations, and the redlined text will appear in a special color so the other party (or parties) can easily track changes without needing to spend time searching for modifications.

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

#334

Post by throwaway667555 »

gentleman11 wrote: post #300
throwaway667555 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. Second, their protest is laudable. But their decision was consciously: "the legal department of this $xxx billion company (that spends $xx million maintaining this employment contract template) will bend to my will, or I will {quit OR relent}".…

This is just name calling and blaming the victim, which is almost every employee of every tech job in the world, while celebrating the power of the employer. Insisting that a contract be negotiable when it comes to complete and total spying on you, in the context of an article where the employer is illegally spying on you, is not the trait of a bad employee

Kathryn Spiers did a man-in-the-middle attack on company property, like how some ISPs used to insert their own popups into HTML crossing their wires. Google tracked Spiers down and fired her for it, 100% justified. Separately, Google's hiring of a union-busting firm is fair game for disagreement, absolutely.

Also, I don't consider an employer having total visibility into its devices to be a power-trip. The onus is on the employee to keep their personal stuff out if they don't want it getting swept up. Of all companies, even Google couldn't design machine learning or quarantining sufficient to wall off personal data from company data inside someone's phone during their forensic prevention and investigation. So the legal department sure isn't going to promise they can unbake the cake that is your voluntarily mixed-use device.

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

#335

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

MereInterest wrote: post #277
throwaway667555 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. Second, their protest is laudable. But their decision was consciously: "the legal department of this $xxx billion company (that spends $xx million maintaining this employment contract template) will bend to my will, or I will {quit OR relent}".…

Honestly, that is the sort of solution I would expect the legal department to suggest as a counter-offer, with Google paying the difference. Having the legal department review contract changes is something I would expect to be standard for them, not a deal breaker. It is the reason for having the legal department there in the first place.

Google already will pay for you to have a separate corporate phone (the hardware and the data plan).

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

#336

Post by ajsnigrutin »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #191

True story, a person I know who was offered a job at Google got the employment agreement (prior to arriving which was pretty standard at the time) and read that bit about "allowing Google to protect it's IP by installing a rootkit" and they red lined it to change it "May only access Google related information and no personal information." When they showed up HR started with "But that isn't how we use it, we would nev…

This is not a rare policy.... but they give you a work phone, and you only use it for work. If they don't pay you for being available after work, you turn it off after you stop working, and turn it back on in the morning.

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

#337

Post by WWLink »

munk-a wrote: post #291
qmarchi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, as a Google employee, they do. If you don't want to run corp software, you can easily just request a corporate phone and that's that.

It is unfortunate (and a reflection of the power imbalance in US employment) that Google doesn't simply offer a corporate phone as a matter of practice - it benefits both the employee and the employer in the long run (with dishonest actions put aside).

Yeah seriously. The company I work for doesn't allow corporate stuff on personal phones, but they do give them to everyone who asks for them. It's pretty nice, you get a choice of android or iOS phone and they just ship new ones out directly from AT&T.

What would suck is if you're not allowed to bring your personal phone at all on campus. Then if you have to reach family you have to do it from your work phone.

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

#338

Post by free2OSS »

throwaway667555 wrote: post #282
MereInterest wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, that is the sort of solution I would expect the legal department to suggest as a counter-offer, with Google paying the difference. Having the legal department review contract changes is something I would expect to be standard for them, not a deal breaker. It is the reason for having the legal department there in the first place.

Some details of an offer & acceptance of employment are trivial and not worth spoiling good will. Me: "Hey manager, can I make an expense report for this work phone?" No matter the response, I'm ok with it, because I make Google money, and that's policy. I should work towards becoming management if I want that to change. But I probably have better things to do than such a trivial disagreement. I wish corporations wer…

I'm not a privacy nut, but I am concerned about a company owning my ideas when I'm working on personal projects.

I'm careful about that.

Would that be a deal breaker even at a dream job, yes.

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

#339

Post by drstewart »

hiddencost wrote: post #301
twblalock wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past. Are you kidding? Salaries have never been higher in tech. Senior engineers make more than $400k (sometimes way more) at Google and other large companies. It is likely that engineers at FAANG companies would make less money if they join a union, because the union would level…

Uh, no. Nope. Google has been suppressing wages progressively for years. They made an illegal no poach agreement with their peers that led to one of the largest settlements in history. Just this past cycle they pushed down compensation for top performers. There was an internal slide deck someone found where they laid out plans to reduce pay by slowing down promo to senior levels. A union would mean the ability to neg…

Uh, no. Nope. http://levels.fyi will prove you wrong.

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

#340

Post by drstewart »

stuwon wrote: post #112
manfredo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you have a right to participate in unionization and politics. But you don't have a right to alter company software to spread your political message. There's a big difference between holding a "Vote X" sign on a street corner on your own time, and using your position as a developer to put up "Vote X" signs on your company's website.

But developers at Uber and Lyft can spam drivers and riders with "Tap to support Prop 22" every time they want to use their apps with no consequence? I don't see how anyone can get upset with employees notifying fellow employees of their legal rights when the same tech companies will abuse their platforms to literally broadcast their political beliefs. https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/4/21549760/uber-lyft-prop-2...

The developers in your example are doing it with the express approval of the company and management. The ones at Google were not.

So yes, there is a big difference.

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