Google says that employees can discuss the antitrust case
When Google He lost his historical antitrust process in AugustKent Walker, his best lawyer, reminded the employees, for the third time, that the case has not been allowed to discuss the case or anyone outside the company.
On Friday afternoon, Google canceled the command as part of an agreement with the Union of Alphabet workers, a group that represents some of its employees and contractors, according to an e -mail Google sent to workers who was seen by the New York Times. Alphabet is Google’s parent company.
The company told employees that it would not announce or maintain overboad rules or policies that limit the right to comment, internally or externally “, on how the antitrust cause addressed to Google search engine could affect the terms and conditions of their use.
Google’s change of melody was part of an agreement supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. The union had filed an unjust complaint for work practices with the NLRB concerning the note of Mr. Walker in August.
The agreement is another blow for Google’s company policies designed to maintain the secretwhich were examined in the case of research presented by the Department of Justice. He also reduced Google’s strategy to keep his business humming during the cause – to make the employees ignore the antitrust battle and stay focused on their work.
Walker, president of Google’s global affairs, told employees not to discuss the case when he was deposited in October 2020, according to an e -mail seen by the Times.
“It is important not to be distracted by this process, including not speculating on legal issues internally or externally,” he wrote, directing employees to focus on the construction of excellent products and services to help people.
Repeated the call in September 2023, When the case went into testAnd he did it again in August, when Google lost that test. The NLRB agreement concerned only that final note.
Two months later, Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice-president of Google regulatory affairs, tried to clarify that the instructions of Mr. Walker referred to talking on behalf of Google to the public.
“This was the basis of Kent’s previous request that the Googlers refrain from commenting” the case, he said.
Courtenay Mencini, Google spokesperson, said that the company did not agree with the interpretation of the NLRB of its “reasonable request that employees do not comment on a legal case pending on behalf of Google without approval”.
“To avoid long disputes, we agreed to remind employees who have the right to talk about their work, as they have always been free and regularly,” he added.
THE The Department of Justice asked for a break of GoogleIncluding a disinvestment of Chrome, its famous web browser, among other remedies intended to restore competition in search. Amit P. Mehta, a federal judge, will decide which remedies to impose by August.
It was difficult to tune in all the legal machinations, Stephen Mcmurtry, a senior software engineer at Google Search and a member of the union, said in an interview.
“Among employees in general, there is fear of the instability that breakage can provide our work, working conditions, compensation, to all types of things,” said Mcmurtry.
Like other large technological companies, Google has established a model of secrecy in its culture and corporate communications. After Microsoft’s legal defense was hindered by E -mail damaged during his Antitrust trial a quarter of a century agoGoogle tried to learn from the example of the company by telling employees not to say anything that could make the conduct of the anti -concurrent company.
Google has also usually discussed sensitive commercial issues in instant messages that have been automatically eliminated, even if the company said she had delivered many chats to the Department of Justice.
