Google sacks Eric Schmidt memo leaker Google has fired the employee who leaked the Eric Schmidt memo announcing a 10 per cent pay raise for the company's entire staff, according to a report citing multiple anonymous sources. So, that pay raise isn't going to everyone after all. CNNMoney reports that within hours of the memo being leaked to Business Insider and …
However, I think the rampant spamvertising on YouTube and the eager support of spammers in Gmail are the best evidence of the rising tide of evil at Google.
On the other hand, at least Google didn't (yet) contribute much to the rules that drive so-called successful companies to evolve in the direction of ever increasing evil. I don't even blame the shareholders. I think primary blame belongs to the legislators and lawyers who sold their souls to the greediest and most selfish among us. The good guys just never cared that much about gaming the system for another buck.
Theres alot you can do when your dodging paying millions in taxes isn't there?
I guess the do no evil also means don't support the country that's making you wealthy.
At the end of the day google could still disappear overnight.
It's a search engine and an advertising company.
I know they have other projects, I love my new android but without adwords paying the bills google would be gogo out the door.
Just think what you could do personally with an extra 30-40%+ of your salary back in your pocket.
If each state taxed google based on the amount of income google is taking from the state it would really be mindblowing.
The rich get richer, the states go broke and the people sit back and watch.
Seems a bit harsh to blame Google for what is, in effect, the way that Corporate America works.
And, Google is used worldwide, not just in the States. I imagine a lot of their income (perhaps > 50%) comes from the ROTW. How do you propose taxing that?
And 30-40% more salary- what are you talking about there?
If you stand up and proclaim that you're not going to do evil, you shouldn't expect to be let off with massive tax avoidance "because everyone else was doing it". As for taxing the income from the rest of the world, Google sell products in the rest of the world, I'd expect them to pay, rather than avoid, local taxes where they're supposed to pay them, just like any other (non-tax-avoiding) multinational.
Who said anything about tax evasion? Google does use some creative accounting to filter their revenue through a few low tax countries, but that has nothing to do with this. The bonus thing just means that Google will pay enough extra to cover the tax. So say it would be $10 in tax on a $1000 bonus, Google will pay the $10 extra so their take home bonus is $1000.
That was my thought - why fire the guy? He's given you some free publicity that suggests Google Inc. is a nice employer (I wish mine gave me a 10% bonus that it then added to my base salary) and they turn around and sack him.
What exactly is Google embarrassed by about this whole affair? Why feel the need to 'terminate' the fella?
"What exactly is Google embarrassed by about this whole affair? Why feel the need to 'terminate' the fella?"
Well, several ideas come to mind...but in the end they all boil down to, "It's a company private matter, you see, and you all know how we at Google feel about our privacy...."
Oh...
Wait....
In many companies, leaking an internal memo would be a sackable offense. Especially one that may have influence on the share price.
Quick work by Google though - figuring out who leaked it. Must have some decent email search engines in there somewhere, oh, hold on.....
Note to self - don't use work email to leak internal documents.
@"within hours of the memo being leaked" ... "the leaker had been terminated."
That's interesting, Google can blatantly abuse and sell our privacy for their profit, but don't dare leak Google's bosses privacy, as you will then be instantly fired. Amazing hypocrisy. :(
Having a legal(ised) way to punish people doesn't change the fact they want to spy on all our communications and everything we do (including our business communications), yet they show they throw a fit if their privacy is invaded at all. That is hypocrisy.
Increasingly the rich and powerful in society have biased the law to give them ways to punish us serfs for daring to do what they do. (Just look at HP today buying its way out of trouble (we would be punished, they buy their way out of trouble)). But then the rich and powerful (i.e. corporations and governments) have the power. Us serfs have no real legal protection against our rich and powerful masters and they do all they can to lobby, obstruct and prevent us getting ways to stop them abusing our privacy. But dare spy on them and see what happens. That is hypocrisy.
has a CEO that seems to equate 'desire for privacy' with 'guilt'. The hypocrisy is not searching through email - indeed, I'd expect that sooner from Google than from most any other company on the planet - the hypocrisy is the expectation that internal memos should stay internal when Schmidt's attitude is that every other chunk of data on the planet should be accessible to the public.
Google's still a brilliant place to work, they give good pay, bonuses, and employee benefits for partners.
Granted there's people who always think they're up to something, but they've done some real great things for everyone.
Why shouldn't they be able to sack someone for leaking damaging info?
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