[HN Gopher] How Amazon, Google and Other Companies Exploit NDAs
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How Amazon, Google and Other Companies Exploit NDAs
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 135 points
Date : 2021-06-30 11:37 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| durnygbur wrote:
| I de-Googled my digital life long time ago. Refactoring now to
| remove the last pieces of personal infra from AWS. Suck donkey
| dong, invasive predatory cunts.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I recently listened to an old episode[1] of the "Reply All"
| podcast from 2018 after someone on HN recommended it. It's a
| crazy story about Foxconn opening a plant in a small town in
| Wisconsin and the NDAs with local politicians made it
| difficult/borderline impossible for residents to push back
| because they didn't even know what was happening until it was
| already approved.
|
| [1]https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhjwd
| beerandt wrote:
| An NDA is a contract, so how does a politician enter one
| without receiving some contractual consideration of value. No
| consideration, no contract, right?
|
| When you leave a company, they typically pay you something to
| sign it.
|
| How did this work in this case?
| karim79 wrote:
| I've been led to believe (through my own corporate lawyer) that
| NDAs are pretty much useless unless they come with a penalty
| clause. AFAIK here in Germany the maximum penalty is something
| like 20k EUR. So at the end of the day, they do seem to be pretty
| much useless, at least in Germany. I think they are something one
| can forgo altogether, for all intents and purposes. Sure, it is
| annoying if someone takes a concept from a presentation and
| creates their own startup, claiming it to be their own invention
| or such, but that's bound to happen one way or another given the
| vast diversity of personality types out there. Bottom line is I
| think it would be beneficial to everyone to abolish this nonsense
| altogether.
| prirun wrote:
| Instead of making NDAs illegal, the tax breaks should be illegal.
| Then corporations could not "shop" different local governments to
| negotiate for the lowest tax bill.
| sosborn wrote:
| Used correctly, those tax breaks are a small price to pay for
| additional jobs in your community.
| mikestew wrote:
| And communism could work if only it were implemented
| correctly. But once one gets outside that ivory tower of
| hypotheticals, all too often it would seem those tax breaks
| still end up being a net deficit.
|
| See also: "Revenues from hot dogs and ticket sales means the
| sports stadium that we've so handsomely subsidized will pay
| for itself in a couple of years."
| sosborn wrote:
| Stadiums are generally done as Public-Private Partnerships,
| which typically go way beyond tax breaks.
| aynyc wrote:
| Almost every stadium deals in the US has been a disaster
| for locals. I'm not talking about the group of folks who
| get displaced and have no place to go. I'm talking about
| local shops, businesses that aren't into venue-related
| businesses.
| sosborn wrote:
| My statement was an indictment of stadium deals, not an
| endorsement.
| aynyc wrote:
| Ah, got ya.
| alistairSH wrote:
| But are they? Or is this just like pro sports stadiums, where
| the company/team reaps the lions share of benefits, and the
| town is mostly left with low income jobs and a pile of debt?
| sosborn wrote:
| Of course the company will reap the lion's share. The town
| has to decide if the remaining bits are worth the tax break
| they give the company. Sometimes they are, sometimes they
| aren't.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Wouldn't the tax breaks be pushed zero marginal utility. Ie
| the benefits you get in employment and other impacts is
| exactly offset by the tax loss.
|
| It also gives an advantage to larger players who can
| negotiate these deals, and the little guy is left in the
| cold.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Worse. The tax breaks can cost you money overall in the
| long run but a politician might need to generate jobs so
| badly they will write off the long term bad trade off
| nine_k wrote:
| Then how smaller places with ambitions to grow and prosper
| could lure large industry? That way, the big and profitable
| industry, with its higher-paying jobs, would just concentrate
| around already rich places. This happens anyway: e.g. 14% of UK
| population lives in London. I don't think this process needs
| any speeding-up.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Less red tape, facilities and services, special attention in
| planning and execution of infrastructure and other
| development. It doesn't have to be money...
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Alternatively, any company should be able to get the same tax
| breaks any single company negotiates.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I find the NDAs to be a bit of a red herring. The real point is
| what kinds of information must lawmakers be open about? The NDAs
| don't really matter here because if they restrict information you
| are legally entitled to, I don't see how they are enforceable. I
| mean what if there isn't any NDA, but the politician simply
| refuses to say what's happening. If citizens don't have any
| positive right to that information, what's the essential
| difference? You could vote the politician out later, but you
| could do the same for anyone signing the NDA as well.
|
| So really I think the focus should be more on forcing politicians
| to be more open with their actions and for this to have the force
| of law. Then the NDAs become irrelevant. Of course this is an
| uphill battle since the laws probably need to be passed by the
| very people who are running the system, but I don't really see
| how that's avoidable outside of jurisdictions with forms of
| direct citizen initiatives.
| bjornsing wrote:
| > And the facts too often do not support it. States and
| localities spend about $95 billion annually wooing corporations
| with tax incentive deals, and most of the evidence shows that
| they receive little for it in terms of real economic benefits.
| The loser is the public, whose tax dollars could otherwise be
| spent on public services that provide something of value.
|
| There's another loser: the companies/entrepreneurs that do not
| get these tax benefits and are disadvantaged in the market.
| nine_k wrote:
| Hmm. Tax insensitive dollars are not _spent_. These are
| hypothetical dollars _not received_ from a factory that might
| have been built.
|
| A thought experiment: let's suppose that the corporate tax in
| your state is exactly 0%. A corporation still employs a lot of
| people in your state, and these people pay taxes. Having them
| unemployed or working at jobs that paid less would be a loss
| for the state tax income.
|
| Am I missing something?
| vsskanth wrote:
| Isn't this restricting speech ? How is this constitutional ?
| [deleted]
| zepto wrote:
| The 1st amendment only limits what the government can do to
| restrict speech.
| xdennis wrote:
| The city is the local government.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It would seem to me that a public official signing an NDA is
| the government restricting speech.
| zepto wrote:
| It's not the government doing the restricting.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It is a member of the government consenting to a
| restriction
| zepto wrote:
| Which means it is not the government legally restricting
| people's freedom to speak.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It depends on state law.
|
| When I worked at a state government agency, we would laugh at
| companies with these things as freedom of information and other
| laws have precedence over some NDA.
|
| Texas is a weird place, but usually these laws are pretty
| similar between states. These economic development agencies are
| making a conscious decision to make this information
| privileged. I wouldn't blame the companies for this at all --
| the government entities are the ones enabling this.
| gruez wrote:
| People need to read what the first amendment actually says.
|
| >Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of
| speech, or of the press
|
| NDA isn't a law made by congress, so it's fine.
| vsskanth wrote:
| Interesting, so it only restricts what congress can do. I
| didn't know that. Thanks!
| handrous wrote:
| These restrictions are usually held to extend to the states,
| and from there all the way down to _school districts_.
| Basically all government at all levels.
|
| States charter corporations.
|
| Ergo, elected officials at any level may void corporate NDAs
| at will.
|
| (then again, something along those lines is my solution to
| _most_ problems involving corporations....)
| chii wrote:
| there should be a law to allow whistleblowing through an NDA,
| if there can be a judgement made where doing so is in the
| public's interest.
| [deleted]
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| NDA's and non completes can really make your life miserable if
| companies want to abuse them.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| How do you avoid them? Even fast food has them now
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Wow this is a pretty dark abuse of NDAs. Where is the oversite on
| legal misuse like this? It's technically legal but clearly
| against the spirit of local governance.
| swiley wrote:
| All code should be public always. Easiest solution to this.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| For people who can't make it past the paywall-- large tech
| companies who want to make an economic deal with public officials
| and politicians (for example, approval of a new data center in
| their city) have them sign NDAs _such that they cannot say which
| company they are working with_. This results in behavior like a
| city council reviewing a tax break for a company without knowing
| who the company is, and prevents the public from criticizing
| because NDAs prevent communication to the public on the matter.
| nine_k wrote:
| I think the state code should forbid state officials from
| entering agreements that force them to conceal information
| material to do their official job. It's even more
| straightforward than conflict of interest limitations.
|
| If the code does not do that, it should be amended.
| mobilio wrote:
| Here is link: https://archive.md/MSYv8
| nojokes wrote:
| Not sure that not disclosing your conflict of interests is
| legal.
| Causality1 wrote:
| How in the world is it legal for someone to sign an NDA when
| working in a public capacity?
|
| The entire concept of being able to sign your fundamental human
| rights away is a bit nuts to me. It's as if it were legal to
| sign up to get murdered.
| bluGill wrote:
| Ask a lawyer about Freedom of Information Act. I'm reasonably
| sure it isn't legal, but by the time you finish all the court
| cases the information is public because the company is
| operating thus making it not worth fighting in court.
| kop316 wrote:
| I know at least for USA federal employees, because of the
| below law:
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1905
|
| They usually do not sign NDAs (and can get in trouble if they
| do, especially if it interferes with their offical duties).
| moralestapia wrote:
| Most NDAs don't hold during trial. Also, you have to prove
| that it was broken, what was released, how, etc... none of
| that is easy. But people don't know/are scared anyway, so
| what the article describes does happen anyway.
| jarym wrote:
| This would not be (so much of) a problem if there was a statutory
| obligation on public officials to perform their duties and as
| part of that share certain information with the public. That
| would override any NDA seeking to circumvent it.
|
| Oh wait... there is (at least in the UK - not so sure about the
| US but I imagine there are similar laws there). Hmm.
| heymijo wrote:
| FYI: I had to disable uBlock Origin on Firefox for the article to
| load.
|
| Even while logged in and using a subscription access code from my
| local library.
| heymijo wrote:
| I see that the opinion author, Pat Garofalo, wrote a book [0],
| and has a substack [1]. If anyone wants to get the gist from a
| different source.
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40122067-the-
| billionaire...
|
| [1] https://boondoggle.substack.com/
| commoner wrote:
| uBlock Origin works fine if Bypass Paywalls Clean is also
| installed:
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...
|
| https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea...
| tombert wrote:
| Tangential and largely unrelated, but a long time ago, I worked
| for a startup that got bought out by a megacorporation. The
| startup didn't really make us sign any NDAs or non-competes, so
| most of the people there had a fairly active github profile.
|
| The transition was fairly smooth, but the megacorporation wanted
| us to sign NDAs, which most of the engineers did, but I made the
| mistake of actually _reading_ it, and realizing that they kind of
| stuck an extremely vague non-compete in there. I didn 't sign it.
|
| I was at that company for a whole year longer, every week getting
| a "reminder" email to sign the NDA, which I never did.
|
| I'm not a jerk, I didn't disclose any company secrets or release
| their code, but I doubt I was the only person who found that
| little "we don't feel like firing you" loophole, and the others
| might have been a little less nice than me.
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