When Good News Is Bad News: Google Reportedly Fires Raise Leaker

November 10, 2010 at 2:31 pm PT

Some corporate memos are confidential.

And some memos are “confidential”–meaning there’s no real expectation that they’ll stay within the family.

You’d assume that Eric Schmidt’s memo to “Googlers” announcing big raises falls in the latter category. If that’s all Googlers, that’s some 23,300 people, so that’s pretty much the same thing as issuing a press release, right?

But Google thinks otherwise, says CNNMoney’s David Goldman. He reports that the company has fired an engineer who passed the information along to Business Insider yesterday:

Within hours, Google notified its staff that it had terminated the leaker, several sources told CNNMoney. A Google spokesman declined to comment on the issue, or on the memo.

I’ve gone ahead and asked Google for comment as well, but I’m not hopeful. (UPDATE: I can see the future! No comment from Google.) In the absence of one, I’ll speculate that Google was freaked out that the “leak” would cause it problems with Wall Street and/or the SEC.

But again, if that’s the case, that makes no sense–you can’t hand out big fat checks to 23,300 people and keep it quiet indefinitely.

And since the point of the raises is to keep Googlers happy in a hot job market–and presumably, to help recruit new Googlers–you’d think Google would want the “confidential” memo distributed. Right?

I gather that some of you agree with Google on this one. Since the company won’t talk, feel free to make their case for them in the comments below.

Tagged with: advertising, Business Insider, CNNMoney, comment, confidential, David Goldman, digital, engineer, Eric Schmidt, fired, Google, Googlers, Internet, leak, leaker, MediaMemo, memo, Peter Kafka, raises, recruit, SEC, staff, terminated, Wall Street

comments so far. Add yours.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1296601384 Phillip Woon

I thought the reason for the raise was so that people wouldn’t leave the company. Then they go ahead and fire one of them.
http://www.facebook.com/bobsentell Bob Sentell

I find it interesting that a company that’s all about me giving it my private information freaks when some of its private information gets out.
http://twitter.com/idontlikewords Eric Eberhardt

Maybe the whole thing was just to out that one guy! Like the part from The Wire (S1) where they withhold everybody’s pay to find out who’s getting paid on the side? =D
http://twitter.com/WrlsFanatic Roger Barnes

Why do so many morons feel so desperate to be “that guy” that leaks information to the street. If you were just doing your f-ing job and not worrying about the size of your e-peen, you’d still HAVE a job.
http://twitter.com/riospablojose Pablo Rios

I agree that there may have been an secondary reason to fire the leaker, it is easy to detect the leak on a small thing like this and get him/her to accept than for a big secret like the next product or service… Google needs to protect it self for the future.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=3114602 Jose Pulido

I wonder who had the balls to leak to CNNMoney that the leaker got canned.
Anonymous

Do no evil!
http://rexblog.com Rex Hammock

How smart is an engineer who would leak a memo in a way that could be detected w/in 24 hours? I guess those quizzes they give potential employees don’t detect the lack of *common* sense.
Anonymous

totally. if i were google i’d fire the person for getting caught — who cares about the actual leak. if you can’t manage something so simple, you have no business working for google or any tech company for that matter.
Anonymous

How did they know who is a leaker?
Do they read employees emails?
Anonymous

they might be reading employees gmail accounts
Anonymous

that’s my concern too
if they are unable to keep such basic secrets as letters from executive
how are they going to keep privacy of my searchers?
Anonymous

I think it’s a great way to sell clients its capacity to know everything about everyone!
http://rexblog.com Rex Hammock

Maybe you weren’t understanding what I was saying, as it was stated in a somewhat sarcastic way, so let me re-state the question: How smart is a google engineer who uses a google product to leak a google secret document? Or, to be even more precise, How little common sense must a google engineer possess to not realize he or she works with the best search-engineers in the world who can, if they want, track down anything done on a computer inside Google using Google software that they, themselves, created and manage.
http://twitter.com/thebetterplanet The Better Planet

Whatever happened to the good old days where people didn’t discuss their compensation in public?
Anonymous

coming from a company that suffers from severe leak issues, ive got to side with google on this one. leaks have a tendency to not only impact the organization, but also every person who works for that organization…many times negatively. employees who leak information tend to be selfish, and do so without thinking of the consequences for those around them. in this case, the leak may have been somewhat harmless, but that is besides the point. what happened to personal and professional integrity and pride in working for a company? I also blame the media outlets who many times pay employees for leaked documents.
http://twitter.com/Fourthletter58 David Simpson

I would fire anyone who leaked a copy of a marked private internal memo.
We also don’t know how much he was paid to do so, It doesn’t exactly scream trustworthy.
http://twitter.com/Fourthletter58 David Simpson

But leaking private internal memos from the company you work for is good ?
Anonymous

i wonder what part of the confidentiality clause in the message did the leaker not understand? perhaps he or she was too wrapped up in code.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FPF2P3B75TPSY3L5NSRZKALIY4 beentheredonethat

Google acted rashly in this instance. They of all people should know that once you distribute mass correspondence or any e-correspondence for that matter, its the same as publishing it. Since they didn’t follow through with FOSA (Fact, Objective, Solution, Action) they’ll be arguing in court against an unlawful termination suit. Think first, don’t act in the moment fueled by emotion.
Anonymous

you may assume that they follow some rules.
Say, they do not check employees emails because it is “evil” but they are “no evil”
it is not necessary that Google follows rules it claims. So the guy might be a security expert but he did not use anonymizer email because he assumed that they follow rules they claim. But they may not follow the rules.
http://rendion.myopenid.com/ render

Its a little unrealistic to expect 23K people to keep a secret. Googol was completely in its rights to fire the emp. But just because they were in their rights, doesnt make them not assholes.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EFAR2Z6NCGZKB7YD7JUXPQBMEY J Delaware

I am somewhat surprised at how everyone has dumped on the so-called leaker. The bigger issue is the PR mess Google has created. Shame on them for firing someone in this economy. As Google is a publicly-traded company, something like this IS A PUBLIC MATTER. And you nit-wits who drink the corporate Kool-Aid should also be ashamed. Go vote for Sarah Palin and blame the “lame-stream” media again and again. I hope Google doesn’t take itself so seriously from now on. If they are emabarrassed about giving out money – then stop giving it out! and don’t shoot the messenger!
http://www.facebook.com/firatparlak Firat Parlak

exactly!!!
Anonymous

Something tells me its a hoax, and that in actuality NO ONE was fired. It’s easy to say “the engineer who leaked the info was fired” without attaching a name. This is how they appease their shareholders, e.g., ” ‘Don’t worry. We’ve terminated him.’ ….next item on today’s agenda…..?”

When Good News Is Bad News: Google Reportedly Fires Raise Leaker

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