When Google lost its historical antitrust process in August, Kent Walker, his top lawyer, reminded employees, employees for the third time that they were not allowed to discuss the matter with each other or someone outside the company.
On Friday afternoon, Google withdrew the command as part of a settlement with the Alphabet Workers Union, a group that represents some of its employees and contractors, according to an e -mail that sent Google to employees and was viewed by the New York Times. Alphabet is the parent company of Google.
The company told employees that it would not “announce overbroad rules or policy rules that limit your right to limit comments, internally or externally” about how the antitrust procedure aimed at Google search engine can influence the general terms and conditions of their employment.
The change of Google was part of a settlement under the supervision of the National Labor Relations Board. The trade union had submitted unfair work practices to the NLRB with regard to Mr Walker's memorandum in August.
The agreement is another blow to Google's company policy, designed to maintain confidentiality, which have been investigated in the midst of the search case of the Ministry of Justice. It also undermines Google's strategy to let his business hum during the court case – to let employees ignore the antitrust struggle and to stay focused on their work.
Mr. Walker, the president of Global Affairs of Google, told employees for the first time that they had not had to discuss the case when it was submitted in October 2020, according to an e -mail viewed by The Times.
“It is important not to deduce this process, including not speculating about legal issues internal or external,” he wrote, instead, instead to commission the employees to concentrate on building great products and services to help people.
He repeated the call in September 2023, when the case came to court, and again in August, when Google lost that test. The NLRB arrangement only concerned the last note.
Two months later, Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice-President of Google of regulatory issues, tried to clarify that Mr. Walker's instructions on behalf of the public referred on behalf of the public.
“That was the basis of Kent's earlier request to refrain from commenting Googlers,” she said.
Courtenay Mencini, a Google spokeswoman, said that the company did not agree with the interpretation of the NLRB of his “reasonable request that employees do not comment on a pending legal case on behalf of Google without approval.”
“To prevent long -term lawsuits, we came up with it to remind employees that they have the right to talk about their employment because they have always been free and do regularly,” she added.
The Ministry of Justice has called for a breakdown from Google, including a disinvestment of Chrome, the popular web browser, in addition to other remedies intended to restore the competition in the search. Amit P. Mehta, a federal judge, will decide which remedies will impose in August.
It was difficult to coordinate all 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 a fear of instability that can offer the disintegration to our employment, working conditions, compensation, all kinds of things,” said Mr. McMurtry.
Just like other major technology companies, Google has established a pattern of confidentiality in its culture and business communication. After the legal defense of Microsoft was impeded by damaging e -mails during his Antitrust test a quarter of a century ago, Google tried to learn from the example of the company by telling employees not to say that the behavior of the company might be able to make competitive capacity.
Google also routinely discussed sensitive business matters in Instant messages that were automatically removed, although the company said it had transferred many chats to the Ministry of Justice.
