Google fires four for violating company policies; employees protest against move

Google announced on November 25 that it has fired four employees for accessing and sharing its private and classified documents,which is a violation of the company policies. Rebecca Rivers, a software engineer who was at the center of the rally last week, protesting against the company's move, was indefinitely suspended for allegedly accessing private and classified documents. Workers allege that employees were not given free-breathing space by the company.

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Investigation team issued memo to employees

Around 200 joined the rally on Friday outside the vicinity of Google's San Francisco offices to protest the action taken against Rivers and another engineer, Laurence Berland, who is accused of accessing the colleagues' internal data. Google's Security and Investigations Team issued a memo to all employees on Monday and said that none of the employees were fired for simply sifting through the document during the ordinary course of their work, the investigations found the individuals accessing data and materials of other employees. However, Katie Hutchison, the spokesperson of Google declined to name the employees. 

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Google seeks to regulate information

Google has been seeking to regulate the information of employees after the recent leaks which involving a proje project with the Department of Defense. Earlier this month, Google had planned to cut its weekly meetings to monthly.

Rivers said at the Friday rally that she had been targeted for her activism at the company. She said that Google instead of listening to her and her co-workers punished her by putting her on administrative leave. Google added that some of the employees felt insecure and unsafe and requested to work from another location after their work calendars were being monitored. The employees demanded at the rally that the suspension of Rivers and Berland must be revoked. Slogans of  "Bring them back," was heard all throughout the protest rally.

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