Discrimination Lawsuit seeks Google reponse to surveillance

This will be an interesting data point.

When I worked at Google the Employee Agreement included language that said Google could surveil you on any equipment you used to "do Google business" which included reading your work email. Because people would often read their email on their private phone or home computer, the clause implied that they could install software on our personal stuff to insure their interests.

I asked them about this and the response was "Oh, we would never do that." And I responded to say, "Great, then lets rewrite that to say 'on Google supplied equipment'" so your intent is clear. And with that a bunch of equivocation came back. "We can't make a special case ..." so make it the standard,, "We don't have the resources to review the ramifications of that sort of change" so hire a lawyer for a week? Etc. Because I can be persistent I pushed it to the point where the response was "We aren't going to change it, if you don't like it you can choose not to work here."

It was one of the first times during my employment where I felt the company was saying something and implying one thing, but they really had a different less accommodating agenda which was the real reason for their action. And for me, it is always a red flag when a company won't be transparent and honest about their actions and also intentionally mislead or misdirect to hide their true intent.

Now we have a lawyer asking the court to compel Google to answer the question under oath, "Do you surveil employees private machines, and if so what do you do with that information."

Here, 10 years after I left, I'm kind of interested in their answer to this question.