Google could use internal surveillance tool to monitor worker dissent and labor organizing, employees warn

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/23/google-workers-warn-internal-s.html

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Don’t be evi…oh fuck it evil pays better.

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Maybe Google will be more successful than I hoped.

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Why on God’s Green Earth would people think this data isn’t available already to people monitoring calendar events on the backend? For better or worse there’s no expectation of privacy when using corporate app instances like this, or if using corporate hardware. You need to adopt better InfoSec practices in general if the idea is not to attract unwanted attention here.

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I’ve had similar thoughts. I was offered a notice of privacy practices by my employer, and the phrase “no expectation of privacy” was on there. Many workplaces do this to ensure security of sensitive data. Others perhaps to gain a sense of control. I think the employees here probably have a cause for concern that is not being mentioned or explained clearly… when it comes to scandal I tend to trust the little guy a little more.

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Could ?
$10 says “is”.

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So, uh; Signal channel on your cellphone (maybe not Pixel) without using the company wifi?! I mean, high school kids can figure this stuff out.

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Jesus guys, ALWAYS assume your employer is listening!

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Uh…especially when your employer is one of the supreme masters of digital surveillance.

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If you try to unionize on company time, using company hardware, and using company networks, I’m sorry, you deserve whatever fate befalls your stupidity.

Unions help companies succeed.

They should arguably fire people who don’t spend time unionising for being unintelligent employees who are less interested in long-term company achievement, than in “not-upsetting a co-worker”.

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I don’t know if it’s fair to pin this on stupidity. Tech industry employees tend to be young, so not only have they grown up steeped in ubiquitous and seamless digital resources but (more importantly) even the ones approaching middle age have lived their whole lives in a country where unions and union organising has been decimated by the neoliberal consensus of the last 40 years.

I’d cut them some slack and hope that they take stories like this as warnings about how far a supposedly progressive-leaning American corporation will go to stop a union.

As they understand in Germany, where corporate board seats are mandated for union representatives.

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I don’t deny that. My father worked his whole life in a car plant…unions were a net good for us.

However, like I said, doing it the way they did it is criminally stupid, especially given the level of animosity between labor and management in this country.

Do right, but do right in a way that’s liable to succeed.

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