The industry is legally forbidden from discussing this subject, so all discussions here or elsewhere will inevitably miss the point. And as members of the public, Google will tell us whatever mitigates their risk the best. You want freedom of speech and the ability to make arguments, you don't work for a public company. And trying to debate it, is like trying to debate Galileo while the inquisition is in the room.
Corporations are required to save all electronic records for SOX auditing, and the State of California might decide to help themselves to those records when their Attorney General is trying to make a name for himself by bringing a gender discrimination lawsuit. That's why you fire people who make a habit of saying incriminating things in easily-searchable electronic format.
For a similar reason, they should probably fire every Google employee who talked about it on the public internet. Very high chance of being troublemakers who draw attention from the government.
Corporations are required to save all electronic records for SOX auditing, and the State of California might decide to help themselves to those records when their Attorney General is trying to make a name for himself by bringing a gender discrimination lawsuit. That's why you fire people who make a habit of saying incriminating things in easily-searchable electronic format.
For a similar reason, they should probably fire every Google employee who talked about it on the public internet. Very high chance of being troublemakers who draw attention from the government.