I'm openly curious if even the creation of some kind of leadership team for human rights questions opens the company up to more liability by creating a paper trail that a prosecutor could point to.
What happens when the documented human rights decisions differ from US law (which has its own places where it's fallen on its face in the human rights department)? Or from the law of any country in which Google operates, for that matter?
(I agree this is a good idea in principle, but it's possible for good ideas to be bad to implement for liability reasons).
It isn't that the creation of such a group is itself a crime. It's that such a group creates a formal paper trail that (whatever crime Google could be accused of) could come under discovery. And "We thought about this and came to the 'wrong' conclusions" is no defense, and the penalties for such a paper trail can be higher than the penalties for "we didn't think of this."
Indications that a company considered alternatives and chose the "wrong" one can indicate intent, which can aggravate damages depending on the law in question.
What happens when the documented human rights decisions differ from US law (which has its own places where it's fallen on its face in the human rights department)? Or from the law of any country in which Google operates, for that matter?
(I agree this is a good idea in principle, but it's possible for good ideas to be bad to implement for liability reasons).