[structAnkit]

This article is conflating whistleblowing with leaking internal product information. The latter should not be done and Google seems to have implemented a means to curb it.

Now if the system is actually being used to curb whistleblowing as well then we have a problem. But nothing the article states even remotely indicates that this is indeed how the system is being misused.

[kcorbitt]

Right. As a Google employee, it's awesome the degree to which the company trusts us with future product plans even in divisions totally unrelated to our personal areas of work. Obviously though, as the company grows that makes it more likely that an employee will, intentionally or not, leak those product plans to the public before the big launch. Most internal presentations that include non-public information generally start with a strict reminder that the information is confidential, and we also get reminded about the stopleaks@ email address fairly frequently. I think this is a reasonable price to pay for the level of internal transparency in a company this large.

I've never associated the stopleaks@ address with supressing whistleblowing, and Google's internal culture and morals are such that I suspect would-be whistleblowers would feel more empowered to publicize their grievances here than in most other large companies.

Disclaimer: personal opinions only, not speaking for Google.

[lima]

Nothing unreasonable in the email either.

Sounds like Google has a culture where they openly share product roadmaps and so on with all of their employees. Can't do that when they leak it to the press.

This is the Wikipedia definition of whistleblowing:

A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower)[1] is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public.

[tyingq]

There is some better basis for anti-whistleblowing in the lawsuit. [1] I'm not sure why they chose this particular email. This snippet from the suit better illustrates it:

Indeed, a second training program entitled “You Said What?” specifically states that Googlers must “avoid communications that conclude, or appear to conclude, that Google or Googlers are acting ‘illegally’ or ‘negligently,’ have ‘violated the law,’ should or would be ‘liable’ for anything, or otherwise convey legal meaning.”

[1] http://www.bakerlp.com/Google-Blackout-Case/2016-12-19-PAGA-...

Edit: I'm not convinced the above is particularly huge evidence of anti whistleblowing. It is at least in that ballpark though, versus the email in the story, which just isn't at all.

[tdb7893]

I've heard doctors given this same above as just good practice for not getting sued. That sort of stuff will be used against you in court and Scrubs (the TV show) even satirizes this

[paulgb]

I remember that training. Basically Google is worried, rightfully, that anything an engineer speculates about the law, even internally, could wind up in a lawsuit. I think this happened in Oracle v Google.

The course was about leaving the law to the lawyers, not about suppressing whistleblowing.

[pmarreck]

> This article is conflating whistleblowing with leaking internal product information

So basically, it's doing what every other attention-whoring wingist news site does in order to rally the critical-thinking-impaired troops into an emotional frenzy