[gwillen]

That provision of the agreement wasn't the reason I quit, but it was a little rock in my shoe that never went away until I did.

If you add up the total number of people at Google who have complained about that rock, and the number of people who haven't but would if they were prompted, suddenly "too much trouble" looks a little different, IMHO.

[fudged71]

So does google still own all your/employees' off-hours IP?

[gwillen]

That depends on who you ask and how you look at it.

Google has always insisted that it's only IP that's relevant to Google's business. Critics (such as myself) have always retorted that ANYTHING can be construed to be relevant to Google's business.

The only thing that's materially changed in response to complaints, is that there is now a review committee that you can submit projects to, and after some weeks they can grant you permission to keep the IP.

But if Google actually believes that your specific project is related to their business, you're not going to get an approval. For example, all applications for smartphones are explicitly blanket excluded.