Former Google employees' lawsuit claims they were fired for calling out 'evil'

Three former Google engineers are suing their former employer, alleging they were unjustly fired after calling out "evil."

Filed to the Santa Clara County Superior Court on Monday, the lawsuit claims software engineers Rebecca Rivers, Sophie Waldman, and Paul Duke had merely followed a contractual obligation to hold Google to account regarding its "Don't be evil" mantra — an obligation they say was imposed by the company itself.

"Google terminated each Plaintiffs’ employment with it for adhering to the directive 'Don’t be evil' and calling out activity by Google that they each believed betrayed that directive," read the lawsuit. "Each Plaintiff fulfilled their contractual duty to Google by advising it... ways in which Google was 'Doing evil.'"

In particular, the call out concerned Google's alleged intent to do business with border and immigration officials under Trump's administration in 2019. Ethical concerns regarding organisations such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were a significant issue at the time, with the U.S. government ultimately holding over 69,000 children in custody over the course of the year.

According to the lawsuit, Rivers, Waldman, and Duke each signed an employment contract which included Google's Code of Conduct. This Code read, in part:

"['Don't be evil' is about] following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect. The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put 'Don't be evil' into practice. It's built around the recognition that everything we do in connection with our work at Google will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct… And if you have a question or ever think that one of your fellow Googlers or the company as a whole may be falling short of our commitment, don't be silent."

To many, certain actions of agencies such as CBP and ICE very clearly constitute "evil." As such, Waldman and Duke launched an internal petition in Aug. 2019 requesting that Google affirm it would not work with these organisations, in line with its commitment not to "be evil." Rivers subsequently discovered that Google had offered a free trial of a cloud platform to CBP, information which was added to the petition.

The plaintiffs allege that all information included in the petition was already freely accessible by all Google employees, and that they repeatedly directed their co-workers not to share it outside the company. The suit also contends that an internal investigation failed to find them at fault and they were not reprimanded in any way.

Nevertheless, all three engineers were fired in Nov. 2019, with an internal memo from Google's Securities and Investigations Team stating that they were let go for "clear and repeated violations of our data security policies." This allegedly included "systematic searches" for information "outside the scope of their job."

Mashable has reached out to Google for comment.

Days before the firings, around 200 Google employees rallied outside its San Francisco office in support of Rivers and another suspended staffer, accusing the tech giant of retaliation. Rivers had been placed on administrative leave after Google interviewed her regarding her access of documents concerning the company's relationship with CBP.

Google's infamous "Don't be evil" motto was quietly removed from the company's Code of Conduct in mid-2018. In some ways this makes sense. We've learnt anything from the past five years, it's that what constitutes "evil" can be extremely subjective.This lawsuit also demonstrates the aspirational phrase has caused the tech giant some headaches.

But on the other hand: yikes.