When Google lost its antitrust trial in August, Kent Walker, its top lawyer, reminded the officials for the third time that they are not allowed to discuss the case between them or from anyone outside the company.
On Friday afternoon, Google proclaimed the mandate as part of a settlement with the Association of Alphabet Employees, a group representing some of its employees and contractors, according to an email sent by Google to employees and was aired by the New York Times. The alphabet is Google’s parent company.
The company told employees that it will not “announce or maintain the rules or policies that limit your right to comment, internally or externally,” about how the antitrust treatment targeting the Google search engine can affect their terms and conditions.
The change of melody from Google was part of a settlement supervised by the National Council of Labor Relations. The Union had filed unfair working practical complaint to NLRB about Mr Walker’s note in August.
The deal is another blow to Google’s corporate policies aimed at maintaining secrecy, which have been examined in the midst of the search case brought by the Ministry of Justice. It also underestimates Google’s strategy to maintain its business to move during the lawsuit – to ignore the anti -bristle officials and to remain focused on their work.
Mr Walker, president of Google’s global affairs, first told employees not to discuss the case when it was filed in October 2020, according to an email seen by the Times.
“It is important not to distance themselves from this process, including non -profitness on legal or external legal issues,” he wrote, instead of directing employees to focus on building large products and services to help people.
He reiterated the call in September 2023, when the case went to trial, again in August, when Google lost that trial. The NLRB settlement only concerned this final note.
Two months later, Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President of Google’s regulatory affairs, tried to clarify that Mr Walker’s instructions reported to speak on behalf of Google to the public.
“This was the basis of Kent’s previous request that googlers are far from commenting on the case,” he said.
Courtenay Mencini, a Google spokesman, said the company disagreed with NLRB’s interpretation of the “reasonable request of employees not to comment on a pending legal case on behalf of Google without approval”.
“To avoid long differences, we have agreed to remind the employees that they have the right to talk about their employment, as they were always free and regular,” he added.
The Ministry of Justice has called for the dissolution of Google, including the divestment of Chrome, the popular web browser, including corrective measures intended to restore competition in search. Amit P. Mehta, a federal judge, will decide what remedies by August.
It was difficult to coordinate all the legal machines, Stephen McMurtry, a senior software engineer in Google Search and a Union member, he said in an interview.
“Among the workers in general, there is a fear of instability that disconnections could offer in our working conditions, in compensation, in all things,” Mr McMurtry said.
Like other large -scale companies, Google has created a model of secrecy in its culture and corporate communications. After Microsoft’s legal defense was violated by the destruction of emails during a fourth century antitrust before, Google tried to learn from the company’s example by telling employees to say nothing that could do the company’s behavior.
Google also usually discussed sensitive business issues in immediate messages that were automatically deleted, although the company said it had delivered many talks to the Ministry of Justice.
