Google’s way of saying ‘snitches get stitches’.

After being voted as the ‘best company to work’ for years, it’s no secret that Google has given its employees some of the best perks. However, CEO Sundar Pichai’s first testimony before the House Judiciary Committee explains exactly why those perks don’t seem so enviable anymore.

A former Product Manager for Google filed a lawsuit against the company because Google allegedly accused him of leaking information to the press. The lawsuit claims that Google broke labor laws in California and can be charged up to $3 billion for doing so.

The lawsuit show us why employees could really use all those free massages they can get. Google’s confidentiality agreement alone makes signing a deal with the devil look easy.

1. Google considers almost everything as ‘confidential.’ From what they’re working on to who they’re working with, disclosing any details could land an employee in court. In other words, software engineers at a tech company work at the same level of secrecy as the CIA.

2. Employees aren’t even allowed to freely share their own opinions about the company online. HR should probably google the contents of the first amendment…

3. A special training program discourages workers from discussing any potential ‘wrong doings’. Essentially changing Homeland Security’s tag line to “if you see something, don’t say anything”. Workers aren’t allowed to discuss illegalities with a lawyer.

4. Employees are prohibited from writing ‘creative fiction’ about tech companies or Silicon Valley in general.

5. Workers aren’t allowed to snitch on the company but they’re encouraged to ‘snitch on each other’ - the lawsuit reveals, “employees are required under Google policies to report leaks” using a chrome extension called ‘StopLeaks.’

For someone who loves secrecy and privacy so much, Pichai seems to have no problem violating other people’s privacy. This week, Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee on a range of issues. One of which was Google’s insatiable need to gain access to consumer data. Representatives grilled Pichai on a report claiming that Google has access to users’ location even after they’ve paused or stopped ‘Location Tracking’ services on their phone. After which, Google had to revise the language used in its privacy policies.

Speaking of privacy violations, Pichai remained evasive about ‘Project Dragonfly’ - a highly censored search engine which Google planned to launch in China. Work on the project reportedly started over a year ago and sparked outrage amongst employees. 1400 workers signed a letter to the CEO, asking for transparency on the project in which the search engine would blacklist certain words such as “human rights” and “student protest”.

When asked about it, Pichai replied, “Right now, we have no plans to launch search in China”. The key word is, “right now”. Since the initiation of the project, Pichai has been secretive about even its existence, despite backlash from employees and the media.

So, we’re not entirely sure if he has any plans to stop Google’s lucrative entry into China. This comes after Google’s public commitment to never “design or deploy” any AI technology that violates human rights.

Joe Cannella, former google employee reveals:

“Basically, you end up spending the majority of your life eating Google food, with Google coworkers, wearing Google gear, talking in Google acronyms, sending Google emails on Google phones, and you eventually start to lose sight of what it’s like to be independent of the big G, and every corner of your life is set up to reinforce the idea that you would be absolutely insane to want to be anywhere else. You are given everything you could ever want, but it costs you the only things that actually matter in the end.”