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Lawsuit: Google Employees Were Fired for Upholding "Don’t be Evil" Code

posted by martyb on Thursday December 02 2021, @12:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the chaotic-neutral dept.

Freeman writes:

Lawsuit: Google employees were fired for upholding “Don’t be evil” code:

Three former Google software engineers who sued the company yesterday claim they were fired for following Google's famous "Don't be evil" mantra.

"Google terminated each plaintiffs' employment with it for adhering to the directive 'Don't be evil' and calling out activity by Google that they each believed betrayed that directive," according to the complaint filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court by Rebecca Rivers, Sophie Waldman, and Paul Duke. The ex-employees say Google falsely blamed them for a data leak after they circulated an internal petition.

The lawsuit notes that the Google Code of Conduct "that each full-time Google employee is required to sign as a condition of employment" specifically instructs them not to be evil. The ex-employees say they tried to uphold the "Don't be evil" policy in August 2019 by circulating a petition "requesting that Google affirm that it would not collaborate with CBP [US Customs and Border Protection] or ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] with respect to enforcement of the Trump border control policies."

"[E]ach plaintiff protested Google's engagement in supporting BCP policies that resulted in separation of families and 'caging' of immigrants who were seeking asylum in the United States," the complaint said.

Google's firings of Rivers, Waldman, and Duke are also part of an ongoing case in which the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Google.

Previously:
(2018-10-13) Google Leak: The Good Censor
(2018-09-14) "Senior Google Scientist" Resigns over Chinese Search Engine Censorship Project
(2018-05-19) "Don't be Evil" Disappearing From Google's Code of Conduct

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday December 02 2021, @03:42PM (4 children)

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday December 02 2021, @03:42PM (#1201529) Homepage Journal

    "Don't be evil" was a lie from the outset. There is no such thing as an honest billionaire.

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday December 02 2021, @06:02PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 02 2021, @06:02PM (#1201571) Journal

    Google said "don't be evil", so they can't lie.

    They wouldn't lie because that would be evil.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:41PM (#1201871)

    "Don't be evil" was a lie from the outset.

    Says the person who wasn't there from the outset.

    Do you remember the 1990s? With WebCrawler, Lycos, Yahoo, AOL, Ask Jeeves and all the others?

    Google wasn't billionaires at the start. They were not evil. They gave better search results than others. They clearly highlighted what was advertisements (and made sure they were not intrusive, no flashing marquee), championed standardization and usefulness, and several other things.

    Are they evil now? Arguably. Don't pretend it was a lie from the "outset."