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0 pointsChuckMcM8y ago0 comments

   > What if Levandowski has the files on his home 
   > computer or something but they never touched Uber's 
   > system?

One of the things that surprised me about Google's employee agreement was that by signing it, the employee gives permission to Google to search any and all digital devices associated with the employee whether or not they are owned by Google. When I asked an employment lawyer about it he suggested it was fairly boilerplate (if a bit extreme) and designed to combat situations exactly like this, party A sues the employer based on behavior of employee B who may have been doing nefarious things 'off book'.

So in this case Uber presumably has a similar clause in their employment agreement and are searching relevant employees devices for evidence of the files.

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vidarh8y ago

Yikes. Most jurisdictions I've worked a clause like that would be entirely unenforcable.

In Norway, employer even have only limited rights to access things like your employer owned devices if they are personal to you, on the basis that it would be an invasion of privacy unless a lot of steps have been taken to prevent you from accessing or storing personal information on it.

Though in a case like this where they have evidence that implies wrongdoing, that would be sufficient to search equipment the employer owns or have financed. The barrier for searching private equipment is massively higher, though, and would normally require going to court.

Personally I'd never consider working for anyone that demanded a clause like what you outlined. I understand their liability concerns, but the at the same time if they won't trust me, then I can't trust them.

distances8y ago

Similar in Finland. Employer isn't allowed to manually track any identifying data (such as IP addresses or e-mail recipients) in their own corporate networks, let alone the actual contents. In case of suspected wrongdoing, automatically collected logs can be handed over to the police for investigation.

Coming from this background the extremely lax privacy protections guaranteed for US based services are always somewhat creepy.

alok-g8y ago

I have read employment agreements in full for all jobs I have ever taken as well as read few of other people who have consulted me about such agreements. I have also read two books on IP laws and researched enough online. I do not think this clause is boilerplate.

On the other hand, whenever someone questions these lawyers about such clauses, they always tell you, ha, this is completely normal, it's boilerplate.

hollander8y ago

How are they going to do this? Can they enter his house and then search his computer and disks? Take anything and ask for his password to decrypt them? If they simply ask him, and he wouldn't want them to find these files, he could delete them or put them on an encrypted stick that they don't know about.

How does this work???

jdmichal8y ago

It works the same as any other contract works. You ask the other party to fulfill their obligations according to the contract they signed -- in this case, submitting their systems for review. If they refuse, then you take them to court for breach of contract.

SolarNet8y ago

You can give up many of your constitutional rights to other people or corporations. Like privacy. They could ask him for a password and he would either tell them or be fired.

Though not all Google employees sign this, just the Project X experimental ones.

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