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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

#401

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #196
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…

I'm not. Legal doesn't want to deal with everyone having a different employment contract. Google has always leaned towards being ok with a ton of false negatives to avoid false positives. They'd rather give up 10 good hires than make one bad one. This is just an extension of that. They don't want any exceptions and they aren't willing to make any.

[deleted]

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

#402

Post by [deleted] »

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #268
janesvilleseo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm kind of surprised by the option to use a personal phone anyway. Whenever I've worked at big tech, there has never been an option to use a personal device or laptop. Even getting a USB port enabled takes a VP to ok it often. But this tends to be in R&D depts.

[deleted]

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

#403

Post by vosper »

djrogers wrote: post #127
ditonal wrote: post #40

One 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…

> assume that HR can view EVERYTHING on your phone, because they can Patently false, for many values of ‘everything’ and ‘phone’. An MDM has zero visibility into an iPhone’s browsing history, iMessage content, or the content of any app not installed directly by the MDM. So things like Signal, WhatsApp, and even the default mail app are off limits.

Why is this being downvoted? Is it not accurate? If so could someone explain where djrogers is wrong?

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

#404

Post by quesera »

shemnon42 wrote: post #217
an_opabinia wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is utterly insane to me how confused people are in the rest of this thread. There are people getting paid like $200,000 a year, and they can't be bothered to pay a lawyer $3,000 to read their employment contract once and explain any of this to them?

What's the point of a $3000 contract review if the employer's response will be "Not changing it, sign or walk."

Well, it helps you decide whether to sign, or to walk, right?

But who would pay $3K for a contract review??

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

#405

Post by mdesq »

jedberg wrote: post #196
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…

I'm not. Legal doesn't want to deal with everyone having a different employment contract. Google has always leaned towards being ok with a ton of false negatives to avoid false positives. They'd rather give up 10 good hires than make one bad one. This is just an extension of that. They don't want any exceptions and they aren't willing to make any.

Agreed. It's not surprising at all since they don't want to manage a bunch of different contracts. However, I'm of the opinion (and I am a lawyer) that the contracts should then always be especially construed even more strictly than usual against the drafter.

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

#406

Post by ehsankia »

inetknght wrote: post #85
fishywang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android, the work profile is supposed to solve that problem: you only add your corp account and install corp apps in work profile, and it's (at least supposed to be) isolated from your personal, default profile on your phone. This is even explicitly stated in work profile enabling flow. The spy activities described in the article is not about actual personal activities on the phone. One is looking at other's corp…

> the work profile is supposed to solve that problem: you only add your corp account and install corp apps in work profile Wait until your personal phone, with its work profile, comes into scope of a work-related deposition. You'll find just how paper thin that argument is.

But that's no longer "spying", is it? You just shifted the goal post.

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

#407

Post by ahelwer »

twblalock wrote: post #399
ahelwer wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a refutation: Microsoft spends $250k/employee/year on stock dividends and buybacks. That's quite a large slice of the pie the union could negotiate for.

> Here's a refutation: Microsoft spends $250k/employee/year on stock dividends and buybacks. That's quite a large slice of the pie the union could negotiate for. Those buybacks increase the stock price, and employees are compensated in stock, so stock buybacks benefit employees already. I find it hard to believe that the company would just give that money as salary instead -- and even if they did, that would mean tha…

As an employee I might have $100k in MSFT stock after five years. Those buybacks gave me what, a few hundred/thousand bucks at most? Come on. For such a supposed math-literate profession this objection is weirdly common.

If you get cash you can turn around and buy company stock. Nobody is stopping you. Unions would also certainly see the value in employee ownership of stock, which broadly aligns with ideas of workers capturing more of the value they produce.

A union enables workers, in aggregate, to capture more of the value they produce - value which would otherwise flow to the pockets of shareholders, the overwhelming majority of whom contributed nothing to its creation. Talk about employee salary distribution is orthogonal to this debate.

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

#408

Post by smartician »

madrox wrote: post #294

This headline is super confusing. I interpreted it as meaning Google spied on people and then fired them. However, what the article itself seems to be saying is that Google fired people for spying on others. The spying was, "for reviewing other employees’ calendars." The NLRB then found that illegal. At least, that's how I'm interpreting this article. Otherwise there's no actual explanation of what spying actually oc…

But in order for Google to catch people spying on other people by viewing their calendars, Google would have to surveil the activity of the people doing the spying. Maybe that's what the headline is referring to, but the article doesn't spell that out explicitly (which makes it a very poor piece of journalism in my opinion).

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

#409

Post by ehsankia »

fishywang wrote: post #59
ditonal wrote: post #40

One 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…

On Android, the work profile is supposed to solve that problem: you only add your corp account and install corp apps in work profile, and it's (at least supposed to be) isolated from your personal, default profile on your phone. This is even explicitly stated in work profile enabling flow. The spy activities described in the article is not about actual personal activities on the phone. One is looking at other's corp…

As per your second point, realistically it was probably even done on work devices and not personal phone anyways. As for the second example, the person actually submitted a change to a corp extension, so that must've also been done on a work device. So none of these example have anything to do with personal devices.

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

#410

Post by smartician »

ditonal wrote: post #40

One 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…

The article doesn't mention anything about mobile devices though?
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