You come from a working-class family, but through long years of studying hard, you get a job at Google. Your extended family all have blue-collar or service jobs. Your cousin gets laid off, and then reads in the paper that you just got a 10% raise, plus $1000 holiday bonus, plus a portion of your bonus pay up-front. Awkward Thanksgiving ensues.

You have a long-time sibling rivalry with your brother, including a game of one-upmanship that extends back to grade school. Finally, you got tired of it, and after his latest raise, you just stopped telling him your salary. Now he hears on CNN that you just got a 10% raise, which leads to much whining about how come you're making more money than him. Awkward Thanksgiving ensues. He goes to his boss and asks for a raise because Google gave one, and his boss replies that he's not worth it, which results in him quitting his job with no plans for what to do next. Awkward Christmas ensues.

Your mom calls you because she just heard on the radio that you got a 10% raise and $1000 bonus, and you didn't tell her, and why do you never talk to her anymore? Awkward...oh hell, if your mother is that neurotic, Thanksgiving would probably be awkward anyway.

You go out for drinks with your friends from other companies, but since you are now apparently rolling in dough, the expectation is that you're buying. These people probably aren't the type that you'd invite to Thanksgiving anyway.

You've been trying to teach your kid about the importance of managing money prudently, and so have restricted their allowance. They come home from school saying, "My friend told me that her daddy said that he heard on the radio that you just got a raise, but you said that you didn't have money to give me a raise. I hate you forever." Sullen, miserable Thanksgiving ensues.

The point isn't that any one person was financially harmed by the leak: it's that by leaking, the leaker has robbed his coworkers of the ability to control to whom and when they break the news. There's no way that the leaker could possibly know the personal circumstances of 30,000 Google employees. Many of them may have very valid reasons for not having details of their compensation plastered across the evening news. When and how they reveal that should be for them to decide, not for one person to decide.