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How Google spent 15 years creating a culture of concealment

(www.nytimes.com)
156 points tysone | 8 comments | 20 Nov 24 11:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.838s | source | bottom
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getpost ◴[20 Nov 24 23:05 UTC] No.42199072[source]▶
If anything you ever say during routine business operations can end up as evidence, clear and honest communication will suffer. The effectiveness of organizations, including the ability to act ethically, will be seriously degraded.

There needs to be some kind of work product doctrine, which protects the privacy of routine business communication. Defining that, while allowing the collection of evidence of criminal activity, won't be easy, but the current state of affairs is unworkable.

I don't wish to facilitate corporate crime, and it's obvious that some of Google's anti-competitive behavior is unlawful. But, I don't see any realistic alternative to what Google is doing in the current legal environment.

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lancesells ◴[20 Nov 24 23:23 UTC] No.42199195[source]▶
> If anything you ever say during routine business operations can end up as evidence, clear and honest communication will suffer. The effectiveness of organizations, including the ability to act ethically, will be seriously degraded.

> There needs to be some kind of work product doctrine, which protects the privacy of routine business communication.

Wow. This is the opposite of how I feel. Mega-corporations should have their communications logged at a much higher level than a normal business. The things that have come out in court show how they manipulated their customers (advertisers). Regardless of how you feel about advertising a portion of those companies are small mom and pop shops trying to get by. If you have communications that can be used as evidence you're probably in the wrong.

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mattmaroon ◴[20 Nov 24 23:26 UTC] No.42199221[source]▶
“ If you have communications that can be used as evidence you're probably in the wrong.”

I’m surprised to see someone advocating for “if you haven’t done anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide” on HN. The cognitive dissonance must be in overdrive here!

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kibwen ◴[20 Nov 24 23:35 UTC] No.42199295[source]▶
No, please stop with this false equivalence. People get rights and benefit of the doubt. Corporations do not.
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1. mattmaroon ◴[20 Nov 24 23:54 UTC] No.42199458[source]▶
It's not false equivalence, we were talking about communications between people. Corporations don't write emails, people do. A corporation, big or small, is just a legal way of definining the property of people, and the people who work for it (who may or may not also own some of it) are people. Communications between them are communications between people.

What they're saying is that people deserve privacy, unless what they're doing has some relationship to making money, in which case they do not.

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2. to11mtm ◴[21 Nov 24 00:17 UTC] No.42199640[source]▶
I mean yes and no...

But it's a vague nebula. Stuff like whistleblower protections, retention laws, 'piercing the corporate veil'....

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3. HeatrayEnjoyer ◴[21 Nov 24 01:32 UTC] No.42200118[source]▶
Except it actually is a false equivalence.
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4. ◴[21 Nov 24 01:38 UTC] No.42200162[source]▶
5. ◴[21 Nov 24 01:43 UTC] No.42200189[source]▶
6. mattmaroon ◴[21 Nov 24 02:26 UTC] No.42200463[source]▶
There are lots of vague things, the idea that if something you said could be used against you in court you must have done something wrong (the only thing to which I was responding) is not one. Prosecutors are just as overzealous in civil cases as legal. Innocent things said at work can be used against someone just as well as ones said at home and in all the same ways and for all the same reasons.

What’s the famous Cardinal Richeleu quote?

I responded only because “corporations bad” is a mind virus deeply inculcated in a lot of people here, but those same people mostly would never think that just because something you said could be used against you in court that you did something either morally wrong or illegal. I wanted people to see the effect the mind virus had on their thinking.

Did anyone? No idea, probably not.

But it’s not a false equivalence at all, all the same reasoning applies whether your communication was at the office or your house, and whether it was about your dog or your code.

There are very many non-nefarious, completely legal reasons one might not want a work communication to be visible down the line, just as with personal. If someone can’t see that their thinking is cloudy and I bet they experience cognitive dissonance.

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7. kelnos ◴[21 Nov 24 04:49 UTC] No.42201227[source]▶
Of course we're talking about communications between people, but the record of these communications is used to find fault with the company, usually, not with the individual people. I think that's a really important distinction.

So I agree with the person who said this was a false equivalence.

Corporations exist at the pleasure of the people; we can and should impose any and all requirements and restrictions on them necessary to ensure they do not amass too much power and act to the detriment of regular citizens. We've failed in that, and we see the negative consequences of that daily.

8. kelnos ◴[21 Nov 24 04:54 UTC] No.42201249{3}[source]▶
> Innocent things said at work can be used against someone

No, they can be used against the corporation. And that's totally fine and proper.

> There are very many non-nefarious, completely legal reasons one might not want a work communication to be visible down the line, just as with personal. If someone can’t see that their thinking is cloudy and I bet they experience cognitive dissonance.

No cognitive dissonance here. I just don't consider private/personal speech to be the same thing as work-related speech. I think the former should be protected from prying eyes (including the government) with as much zeal as we can muster. But the latter? No, there is no reason or need to hold that stuff sacred, and many reasons related to accountability to ensure it's recorded and available for legal challenges.