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.

Plaintiffs “harmed by their reliance” on Google code

Each of the three plaintiffs had "relinquished other employment opportunities" to work for Google and "believed that by accepting employment with Google, their labor would not be used to produce products or services that would facilitate unethical, inhumane or 'evil' conduct," the complaint said. The fired employees were allegedly "harmed by their reliance upon Google's representation that Google employees were entitled, and required to 'call out' Google for engaging in action that they believed violated its 'Don't be evil' code of conduct." The plaintiffs also allege that Google violated California labor law by restricting their political activities, specifically by "interrogating and subsequently terminating the employment of plaintiffs for speaking out about and objecting to Google's involvement in contracting with the Trump administration's CBP and ICE agencies to provide goods and services." The plaintiffs are seeking financial damages. We contacted Google about the lawsuit and will update this article if we get a response.

Google blamed plaintiffs for data leak

The petition the then-employees circulated included the information "that Google had already offered a 'free trial' of its new cloud platform, 'Anthos,' to CBP." Rivers found this information "by conducting ordinary online searches and reviewing internal Google documents that were readily available to her and all other full-time Google employees," and the petition "expressly directed their co-workers to refrain from sharing this information outside of Google," the lawsuit said. But the information about the free trial was leaked and reported by Business Insider. The three employees say they were fired on November 25, 2019, "within minutes of one another," even though Google's investigation found no evidence that they leaked the information. "Neither Duke, Waldman or Rivers ever shared any information pertaining to the free Anthos trial (or any other 'confidential' or 'need to know' information) to Business Insider or any other publication or person outside of Google," the complaint said. The employees "fully complied" with their terms of their employment, including by "complying with the directive to tell Google if they believed that Google, other employees, or its Board members were violating the obligation 'Don't be evil,'" the complaint said. The plaintiffs say they upheld the "Don't be evil" directive when they "questioned Google management regarding its intent to enter into a contract with the Trump administration's" immigration and border control agencies. A month before circulating the petition, Waldman "openly questioned Google's commitment to refraining from working with CBP," leading to comments and followup questions from hundreds of employees, the complaint said. A Google manager allegedly "took the highly unusual step of advising Waldman that the comments on this topic were going to be closed." Shortly after that, the lawsuit says, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said "during a workplace meeting that Google in general and Google Cloud in particular would not participate in any projects 'associated with the Southern Border,' and affirmed that Google products and services would only be used for 'good stuff' such as crop protection."

Google de-emphasized “Don’t be evil” in 2018

In 2018, Google removed "Don't be evil" from the preface of its Code of Conduct but retained the phrase in the document's conclusion. The current version of the code on Google owner Alphabet's website ends, "remember... don't be evil, and if you see something that you think isn't right—speak up!" The lawsuit quotes the older version of the code, which said that "Don't be evil" is "about providing our users unbiased access to information" and "also about doing the right thing more generally—following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect." Two of the three ex-employees who sued Google were hired before those lines were removed from the preface. Duke was hired in August 2011, Waldman in January 2018, and Rivers in February 2019. The lawsuit initially describes the older version of the code as if it is still in effect. We contacted the plaintiffs' attorney, Laurie Burgess, but she declined to elaborate on this point. Near the end of the complaint, however, is an allegation that may refer to the code's textual change:

[W]ithout their knowledge, during the course of their employment Google unilaterally altered a material term of their contract, namely, their joint contractual commitment to Google's "Don't be evil" Code of Conduct—specifically, Google decided to start punishing employees for fulfilling their contractual commitment to "call out" conduct that they believed to be inhumane or "evil"... Google did not act fairly and in good faith when it materially breached its Code of Conduct and unilaterally changed this working condition without prior notice to or agreement from plaintiffs.

The lawsuit also says that, in January 2019, Google hired a consultant firm to "assist it in surreptitiously rolling back its 'Don't be evil' mandate" and later implemented the firm's "recommendations for defending itself against employee organizing and other activity that Google considered an 'attack' on its 'brand.'"

Slander allegation

The lawsuit also alleges that, on the day the plaintiffs were fired, Google VP of Global Security Chris Rackow "issued a false and grossly misleading statement regarding the termination of these employees by asserting that despite 'being reminded of data security policies,' they engaged in 'systematic searches' for information 'outside the scope of their job' which included 'inaccurate descriptions about Googlers' work and [which] was subsequently shared externally.'" The ex-employees say they were never "told prior to their termination that they had in any way violated any 'data security policy,'" and that "each only searched for and reviewed documents in Google's data base that any and all other full-time employees could have found and reviewed on their own." The lawsuit says Google's statements were slander and "caused significant damage to Rivers' reputation and ability to become gainfully reemployed."