Google stories ?

I blogged before about Google reading peoples documents, but one of my colleagues in the US shared this with the world this morning

From: Ryan Pollock [mailto:Something@google.com]
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 11:30 AM
To: something@google.com
Subject: Please do not attend the Google @ Work seminar

Hello.
You previously registered for a Google @ Work seminar.  Because you work for a competitor, we politely ask you not to attend.  These seminars are intended for prospective customers.
Thank you.
--
Ryan Pollock
Product Marketing, Google Enterprise
something@google.com
(6xx) 2x3-xxx2

Now it throws up some interesting questions because there are very few customers out there who buy everything from one vendor. I've blogged about "Coopertition" before, and it's in our customers interests that we understand the other stuff in their environment. We just wouldn't ban a competitor from our sessions. When Melville worked here he was welcome at the Oracle user group, Steve goes to Linux events. This brought another story out of the woodwork

Subject: RE: Please do not attend the Google @ Work seminar

I had the same story almost a year ago I did some booth work at the European Open Source Convention in Brussels.
We had a booth with Port25 next to the Google booth. I was handing out a lot of t-shirts and I asked the google guys if they wanted one.
"We are not allowed to wear any t-shirts from a competitor" :) very amusing, I asked a google t-shirt just for fun :)

 

So share your stories of Google secrecy and control freakery, that's what comments are for.