An internal email from Google hints that company has put in place a tip line so employees can blow the whistle on whistleblowers.
Top of the Order:
The CIA, the KGB, and now, Google?: Remember in those young and innocent days of Google, when the company wasn’ t much more than the best internet search engine around, and its motto, as laid out by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin was simply, “Don’ t be evil”?
Well, times have changed. Google has gotten bigger. Way bigger, in fact, as it now has its hands in everything from smartphones to self-driving car technology. Its name may still be Google, but for more than a year now, its official corporate banner reads Alphabet. And as with any company that evolves, some of its policies and traditions evolve, too.
But does that evolution involve being evil?
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Biz Break: WannaCry attack gives boost to security software makers That’s the assertion from an anonymous Google employee, who has filed suit against the company alleging that it runs an internal program of spying on employees as a means of ferreting out workers who leak Google information to the press or other outside sources. The lawsuit alleges that the Google program is operating in violation of California labor law.
Now, a new filing in the lawsuit includes an internal email purportedly from a Google employee named Brian Katz, whose signature reads “Director, Protective Services, Investigations & Intelligence.” Or, as Katz put it in the email, “I lead the investigations team, ” which includes the company’s stopleaks@ program. The email also references a transcript of an internal, all-hands meeting at Google that was leaked to the tech news website Recode last year.
Many large companies have policies, and sometimes software and services, to make sure their employees aren’ t messing around on websites or doing other things they shouldn’ t be doing when they are on company time. So, it should be no surprise that Google would want to ensure that stuff it doesn’ t want to get out to the public doesn’ t get out to the public.
Katz seemed to really want to get the message across to all “Googlers” that leaking confidential information was not a good thing.
“If your’ re considering leaking confidential information to a reporter — or to anyone else externally — for the love of all that’s Googley, please reconsider!”
It’s hard to imagine the director of investigations at, say, the CIA, using a term like “Googley” to implore employees to keep their mouths shut. But, Google has always claimed to be a different kind of company, even in reference to what it considers to be holy. Or, Googley, as the case may be.
Middle Innings:
Well, He Would Know: Evan Williams’ fingerprints are all over the internet as we know it today.
Along with Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone, Williams co-founded Twitter. Williams also co-founded the blogging site Blogger, and founded the longer-form web publishing site Medium. And now Williams is sorry.
In an interview that ran in the New York Times over the weekend, Williams, who seems to take himself and his very hipster look very seriously, apologized. You get three guess as to what he apologized for, as long as each guess is “President Donald Trump.”
“It’s a very bad thing, Twitter’s role in that, ” Williams told the Times of the part that Twitter may have played in Trump’s presidential victory last November. Trump, who loves to use Twitter to put his messages out, has said that he wouldn’ t be president without the social-media platform. And in response to that, Williams wants everyone to know how badly he feels about Twitter’s role in Trump being in the White House.
“If it’s true that he wouldn’ t be president if it weren’ t for Twitter, then yeah, I’ m sorry.”
Not Even as a Write-In?: Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is a busy man. As if having one small child, and another one on the way, and needing to make time to visit his 700-acre compound on Kauai weren’ t enough, Zuckerberg has set a goal of visiting and talking to people in all 50 states this year. Among the places Zuckerberg has been is the Ford Motor plant in Dearborn, Michigan, where in April, he helped build some F-150 trucks.
Zuckerberg’s magical mystery tour around the country has sparked speculation that he may be planning to run for public office sometime soon. However, Zuckerberg shot down those rumors (at least for now) by saying in a blog post that his “listening tour” is not meant to help him test the water for a possible future in politics.
What a shame. With Dwayne Johnson talking about running for president in 2020, who wouldn’ t vote for a Rock-Zuck ticket in three years? Hey, we’ ve done stranger things in our elections before.
Bottom of the Lineup:
The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.8 percent to end the day at 6,133.62.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4 percent to finish at 20,894.83.
And the broad-based Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.5 percent to settle at 2,394.02.
Quote of the Day: “Twitter is not performing to its potential.” –Twitter shareholder Jim McRitchie, who was speaking at Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting in support of a proposal to have the company sell itself to its shareholders. The proposal failed.
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