Live data from Hacker News

FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

ftc.gov

131–140 of 189 posts

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#131
post #55

About 20 years ago I joined a large company in California, where non-compete clauses are essentially disallowed. A few years later, I moved to the company's offices in Washington State, where non-competes are allowed. Before the move I emailed HR and asked if I needed to sign the WA state employment agreement (with that non-compete clause) and they said "no". I saved that email. Forward a decade, I resigned to work f…

I’m impressed that you could locate that email after a decade!

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#132
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't have a new contract for you with the local provisions when you got raises, etc? That's how companies I've worked for have forced new things in.

I've never been asked to sign an updated contract for a job.

I had an employer tie a forced arbitration clause to a stock option refresh.

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#133
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't have a new contract for you with the local provisions when you got raises, etc? That's how companies I've worked for have forced new things in.

I've never been asked to sign an updated contract for a job.

I've had to sign sort of sub-contracts, e.g., during option awards. I think my main employment contract might have been updated once, when the employer I worked for was acquired, but it was a while ago so I could be mistaken.

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#134
post #50
post #19

15 or so years ago I worked in a small company that specialized in wind predictions and was me and 10 meteorologists I remember them saying Accuweather is close to the main campus of Penn State which has a large meteorology program. They were saying if you joined accuweather and quit you couldn't work in any weather related field for 5 years after leaving accuweather. Basically the NDA locked you in and you were a pr…

Not surprising from them. See this for more on their history: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...

Seriously? That's disappointing. They've been my go-to for years since most other (non-weather hobbiest) weather sites have become basically unusable due to ads.

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#135

[flagged]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/opinion/democrats-blue-st...

https://www.cbs8.com/amp/article/news/local/california/study...

https://www.businessinsider.com/california-worst-quality-of-...

I can go on but tonight I have to deal with a flood situation that the SF Bay Area infra is struggling with.

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#136
post #68

I worked for (and my wife still works for) a small company that provided a boutique set of engineering services. They had a non compete that was very narrowly tailored and called out by name the competitors that you couldn’t go work for directly (6 months or a year), all of which were also small companies. That sort of non-compete that seems reasonable to me- very specific, time limited, and only for people with actu…

Why do you believe employers should be able to control who you work for when they're no longer paying you? One easy test for contract fairness I learned from my lawyer is, "Would it make sense if it were symmetric?" So, e.g., would your employer also agree not to go after clients that your next employer has? Or would they agree not to hire any engineers you consider competitive with yourself while you're there and fo…

Can anyone shed light as to why the push for symmetric non-competes isn't a movement?

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#137

What's really interesting about this is that the FTC is now considering labor to be a market in which anti-trust rules apply. That is a development of the past two years.

IANAL and this was the DOJ not the FTC, so maybe there's some context I'm not getting, but the Apple/Google/Adobe/Intel/Intuit/Pixar no-poaching settlement was in 2010:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-s...

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#138
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not surprising from them. See this for more on their history: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-s-p...

Seriously? That's disappointing. They've been my go-to for years since most other (non-weather hobbiest) weather sites have become basically unusable due to ads.

[dead]

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#139

Is there a place I could learn about non-compete law? I'm curious whether my existing NC could be enforced.

It varies state by state since there are different rules by each on what clauses in non competes can be enforced. Some states like CA and MA straight up ban them.

Are you sure non-competes are banned in MA? Do you have a source for that?

Re: FTC cracks down on companies that impose harmful noncompete restrictions

#140
post #91
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I learned while working for your company isn't your company's property any more. Good ideas almost always eventually spread in our industry. You are only thinking about code. Imagine knowing all the dirty secrets about how your company screwed customers. I have seen employment contracts forbidding working for a customer, in addition to competitors and in addition to an NDA.

Again, that dirty laundry eventually being aired is a good thing for our industry. There need to be costs to being a scumbag, even if the cost is just to your reputation.

Not saying it isn't; just that there's another angle outside of software.

The "Front Page" ethics test is probably the best one I've heard: "What would people think if what was being done was reported on the front page of the NY Times or other major news outlet?"

Post reply on HN