Say no to bullshit meetup NDAs (opens in new tab)

Can't upvote this enough. Facebook in NYC does this also, and it's just plain creepy.

Mostly because it would take them no effort at all to advance this policy in advance. But they don't -- they just ambush you with it when you get there. And they know damn well that no one's going sit down and read (let alone think about the implications of) what they're signing. That's the creepy part.

I agree with you. Why would you want to put that much power over your life in some facebook attorney's hands. Even if nothing probably will come of it. What if they decided to put you in their crosshairs.

I was just at a 24hr Hackathon hosted by Facebook last weekend. They sent us the NDA in advance, they didn't make us sign it when we got there. The language of the paper is very broad, but they made it clear while we were there what it actually constituted -- certain areas where engineers worked were off-limits, and we could take pictures of the office, but not of any whiteboards or monitors with stuff on them. It was very reasonable.