7 comments

  • fragmede 523 days ago
    The interesting ramifications from this are going to be at Apple. Their corporate secrecy is well known in the industry - employees aren't even supposed to tell outsiders what department they work in, never mind small potatoes like Google employees agreed to that they're getting $20 for.
  • Rebelgecko 523 days ago
    Full disclosure, am googler, opinions are my own, etc etc

    From the article it sounds like it's actually $42-$79 that most of us didn't have to fight particularly hard for

    • johntiger1 523 days ago
      Congrats! looks like you hit the jackpot
      • klipt 523 days ago
        That's almost a 0.01% annual bonus!
        • anuraaga 521 days ago
          I think it's closer to 1%. If the average Googler drinks 500 lattes per year on campus, this seems to enable about 5 more off campus.
    • joshl32532 523 days ago
      Unless you're Google SVP+, nobody will think you're speaking for Google...
      • Rebelgecko 522 days ago
        Mostly just trying to avoid an awkward gotcha moment where someone digs through my comment history, finds a reference to my employer, and accuses me of some sort of shilling.

        I've seen it happen to other people and IMO it's better to go with the lame disclaimer.

      • aleksiy123 522 days ago
        There's quite a bit of news stories that start of with "Googlers <verb> ..." which is based on the comments of a couple employees.

        Better to just play it safe.

      • Freedom2 523 days ago
        Or even speaking on behalf of a significant part of Google employees. The hubris of HN Googlers is astounding, sometimes.
        • nabogh 522 days ago
          They're trying to avoid repurcussions from saying something their employer doesn't endorse
          • Freedom2 522 days ago
            No reasonable person would think that Google, the company, would endorse a message like this:

            > it's actually $42-$79 that most of us didn't have to fight particularly hard for

    • O1111OOO 522 days ago
      > Full disclosure, am googler, opinions are my own, etc etc

      > From the article it sounds like it's actually $42-$79 that most of us didn't have to fight particularly hard for

      Lots of litigation most of us aren't even aware of. Early this year, I came across a Google class-action relating to "the inclusion of Google search queries in referrer headers":

      https://www.refererheadersettlement.com/

      I normally would have closed the tab but this time... why not.

  • Full_Clark 523 days ago
    "In the end, Google will pay out only $27 million, a drop in the bucket for such a titanic company."

    The article compares that payout against the $20,000 million Alphabet profited just last quarter, a significant difference considering that the lawsuit took ~28 quarters to generate this outcome.

    Does anyone think the confidentiality clauses were pivotal in generating that scale of profit? Would Google or Alphabet be significantly poorer if their employees had been suddenly unburdened of the confidentiality clauses back in 2016?

    • deltaburnt 523 days ago
      Put another way, is it possible these actions led to a >$27m increase in profits? That's a 0.1% increase for that quarter, so maybe not so far fetched. If so then it was financially advantageous to break the law.
  • jusssi 523 days ago
    20$, and more freedom? Unless they settled for keeping the illegal contracts for a free lunch.
  • ur-whale 523 days ago
    The real cost to Google is not the payout, but the lawyer fees over 7 years.
  • mjthrowaway1 523 days ago
    This is a PAGA lawsuit. Person filing it will get quite rich.
  • bugglebeetle 523 days ago
    [flagged]