Lawsuit accuses Google of illegally curbing employee communication

No free speech: The plaintiff says the confidentiality agreements that all Google employees are required to sign essentially bar workers from saying anything about the company, even to each other.

A Google Inc product manager has sued the company, accusing it of unlawfully prohibiting employees from sharing concerns with coworkers, shareholders or the press, and maintaining a "spying programme" to prevent leaks.

In the class action lawsuit filed on Tuesday in California state court in San Francisco, the employee, identified only as "John Doe," says Google's employment agreements are illegally broad and violate various state labour laws.