Freelancer Won't Sign NDA - Skip Them?

That's my thought. I've read a few that mean they won't be able to work with your competitors, have to give you info they wouldn't normally share, etc...

DING DING! MARCIA GETS IT RIGHT!!!!!!!!

A LOT of foreigners will sign WITHOUT A MOMENTS THOUGHT, but have NO intention of honoring it, figuring you can't touch them. That is FACT, SORRY!!!!!! Some NON foreigners will sign it, WITHOUT a thought, because they DON'T CARE, and figure you won't sue anyway.

In short, signing means LITTLE!

But HEY, I had one company that asked me to sign a special NDA. I bet you heard of them. They practically OWN the LARGE capital city they are based in. Even the POLICE told me that. To give you an IDEA of how big they are, they traded over 4.2 million shares last friday, are on the NYSE, and outstanding stock is almost 17Billion. Somehow, I don't think you would call them a small business. ALSO, they have LOTS of lawyers!

GUESS WHAT! I told them I would NOT sign! WHY? Because the wording was such that it would basically allow them to force me to work for NOBODY else! I crossed out HUGE parts of it, and what did THEY do?

THEY HIRED ME! I did my job. I won't even tell you WHAT I did for them. You might have guessed who they likely are, but I haven't said. But they almost certainly are getting new business, lowering costs, and reducing fraud, because of what I did for them. There are a LOT of potential benefits.

As for the NDA? What they had a right to cover is something I would not have disclosed ANYWAY! HECK, I have worked for companies and had potential access to patients, donors, customers, vendors, etc.... Did I copy it? NOPE!

So what can you take away?

1. NDAs that say people can't say that somebody purchased fast food from a standard place (like KFC, with no other specifics), or that say that michael jackson at one time purchased laundry detergent(with no other specifics), or that the signer can't add 2+2 anymore(like the one that BIG company wanted me to sign), are ILLEGAL! NDAs that say they can never use a standard method, such as javascript, html, etc.... are ILLEGAL! TECHNICALLY, they are unenforcible. STILL, they can be a NUISANCE!
2. NDAs do NOT prevent or prove anything! They only may enforce your case should you decide to sue, if they break the contract.
3. A person may decide not to sign because they are MORE honest.

BTW I read ALL NDAs! SOME I sign, and some I start crossing things out, and make it clear I have to do so. NOBODY has not hired me because I didn't agree!

BTW with me it is a GIVEN that I should not release vendor lists, customer lists, unique processes, etc.... I NEVER have! And that is a GOOD thing! I have had to deal with data that HIPPA, PCI, etc... would NOT allow me to release. I have dealt with some BIG companies! Ones over 100 years old, and ones well into the tens of BILLIONS USD!

But there IS a limit! For example, I can tell you I worked for a company that even collected iron level stats for people. Out of respect for the company, I won't name it, though the law may allow me, and I doubt the company would care. I could MAYBE even tell you if a sex were more likely to have that. MAYBE even a race. If I started narrowing that down to a birth date, or even a person, I could be in SEVERE trouble. I wouldn't do that and, I didn't even really look at such data, so I doubt I could tell you if you gave me truth serum.

As for that company, I could tell you the NYSE data because it is PUBLIC! The company could NOT forbid me to reveal that. But I wouldn't give you ANY data you couldn't get in PUBLIC reports.

HECK, I once worked at a place and COULD have been on TV announcing various things. The company said not to. I DIDN'T! I wouldn't have anyway.

Steve

Agreed. If the OP will upload the NDA, I'll be happy to give my thoughts. Until then, everything is speculation.

Sorry, I worded that part of the sentence without thought. What I mean is that I'd sign an NDA without thought IF that NDA was strictly regarding privacy of a client.- which all NDA's are, surely?

I sign NDA's on rentacoder from time to time - the client can edit them but they have a default template which is strictly regarding basic non-disclosure.

Don't assume also that the freelancer understands what are obvious to you as the ramifications of the NDA.

I have certain freelancers who work for me sign an NDA because I promise confidentiality to my client. Turns out various freelancers casually mentioned to me discussing assignments with family members. They assumed, I guess, that spilling secrets to family members doesn't count. I had to remind them of the wording of what they'd signed, and they got the point.

Afterwards, I emphasized "including family members" when asking new people to sign the NDA.

Marcia Yudkin

Yep, I forgot to cover that, but that is ANOTHER thing. I have seen *****MANY***** here, HECK, AMAZON has done it, that talk about OBVIOUS stuff with PREVIOUS ART like it is some new thing they magically dreamt up! I have ACTUALLY had clients that told me a "new, and useful, idea", and they are trying to rack their brains trying to figure out how I can do it, and I tell them something like "That would take a lot of effort to implement fully, and test right, let's just use MYSQL, to do that, like everyone else!"! I mean SERIOUSLY, there is a LOT of stuff that has just been done before. And when people try to think stuff like that up, they almost ALWAYS forget something. HECK, I tried my dangdest once to get a customer switched from a system I designed, that was running for YEARS to one they wanted because of claims that it was more reliable, and it cost $250,000 less. GUESS WHAT! That database company forgot one VERY IMPORTANT THING!!!!!!!

It is IMPOSSIBLE to read data on a database unless it has been LOADED to the database! The database was NOT more reliable. It was, in fact, LESS reliable! And that was especially true of loads.

Other customers describe stuff to me and I say YEAH, I already put that in as an option!

HECK, look at Amazon.com. They talk about one click ordering like it is so novel, etc... When they first did it, it wasn't even anywhere NEAR right! I still remember my firewall warning me that it was sending my credit card info over the line via a cookie. I'm almost surprised they didn't prosecute PAYPAL. I mean, outside of having to log in, all your info is right there and you can even have it send shipping info. Outside of the confirmation page, that you probably DO want, it is basically click here.

Steve

That is just not true. NDA's are specifically designed to prevent disclosure of company secrets. It has nothing to do with what you already know. It simply means that you won't disclose anything specific to that companies business. It doesn't prevent you from using any knowledge that you already have, or even any knowledge that you gain. Only the details that are specific to that job.

This is completely different from a non-compete clause, that prevents you from doing work in the same business, at least for a time.

Provided that it is a standard NDA that contains no other agendas, which I assume is what the OP is talking about, there should be no problem with anyone signing one. You might want to ask them if there is something in the wording they object to, and see if it can be worked out. If they just refuse for no reason, find someone else.