Sometimes it is juicy though, and those times...well. Those are the ones we tell everybody.
"People no longer bound by their NDA, what can you now disclose?"
Here were some of the juiciest answers.
The Cola Wars
coca cola GIFGiphy"Not my own but from a family friend. Coca Cola and Pepsi regularily settle disputes behind closed doors on things like employees trying to quit and join the competitor."
"Their employment contracts have entire clauses stating you cannot be employed by the competing companies even after you quit so to protect company intel and confidentiality."
"For example, a Coca Cola employee feels like he is being mistreated by the company so he quits and tries to work for Pepsi."
"So Pepsi's legal team will inform Coca Cola as soon as they find out and Coca Cola will sue the guy for breach of contract and in return Pepsi will pay them."
"This is done so Pepsi and Coca Cola don't sue each others into bankruptcy for breach of laws regarding industrial competition and market regulations. Basically a peace treaty of sorts."-JazzPhobic
Behind The Mask, Who Are They?
"I was part of the beta testing for DC universe online. I remember a few missions that were voiced probably just by developers, before they hired the voice actors to do it."
"I wish I had saved footage of it but there was one where Supergirl was clearly voiced by a man doing a high-pitched falsetto voice. One of the funniest things I've ever seen."-DrumBxyThing
Hollywood For An Evening
"Not sure if I'm no longer bound or not or how common knowledge it is, but living in NYC I was paid to be a fan at a major red carpet movie premiere for a popular film franchise."
"100% of the people there were paid to act excited as famous actors and a VERY famous director walked out and said hello and did interviews. We were under strict instructions not to let anyone know we were hired."-LearnedToUnicycle
See? We told you--sometimes, it's just corporate America. But sometimes it's test runs of (now well-known or defunct) products:
A Good Idea In Theory
"Cheetos Clean Paws. I worked in market research and Frito-Lay tested these back in 2007, I think. The concept was Cheetos that didn't leave orange dust on your fingers."
"What that translates to is Cheetos with an edible lacquer sprayed on them. But they tested very poorly because they tasted like they had edible lacquer sprayed on them."
"My coworkers and I referred to them as semi-gloss Cheetos."-darkisright
No More Drama
"I signed an NDA for a predominant American show where they take a certain type of business on the brink of failure and 'transform it' to save the business."
"When the producers of the show found out my wife and I both worked there, they tried to fish through our relationship for tv drama."
"When they found out we have a solid relationship, they tried to convince us to fake our drama with scripted conflict. Long story short, we got fed up and quit during shooting. We were cut from the show. Oh well."-unholyXwater
Hollywood Conspiracy Come To Life
"I used to work for a company that tracked ticket sales for theaters across the US. By contractual agreement with Hollywood studios, we collected information for approximately 80% of theaters, but we were not allowed to collect that last 20%. Why?"
"You may have heard of Hollywood accounting. Hollywood studios work very, very hard to ensure their accounting is as beneficial to the studios as possible. No surprise; all businesses do this."
"But Hollywood has unusually high amounts of money in very narrow products, creating a distorted market. And the industry is rife with films grossing obscene amounts of money but not reporting a profit."
"Because our company couldn't collect that last 20% of theater data, it wasn't possible to absolutely say that a movie made X number of dollars."
"So, I can't prove it, but ...On Friday, June 21st, 2002, the movies "Minority Report" and "Lilo and Stitch" were both released to great fanfare."
"Minority Report's opening weekend was reported at $35,677,125 (27.0% of total gross)."
"Lilo and Stitch's opening weekend was reported as $35,260,212 (24.2% of total gross)."
"This is a lie. Lilo and Stitch earned more money than Minority Report its opening weekend. 20th Century Fox couldn't have a Tom Cruise feature film being beaten by a f**king cartoon."
"So someone at 20th Century Fox called Disney and offered a deal. Since the full amount of money earned couldn't be proven, Fox would announce that Minority Report was the top earner for the weekend. In exchange ..."
"We never knew what the exchange was. We simply knew that Minority Report was reported as the top earner and Disney received some benefit for not saying anything."-OvidPerl
Teachers Describe The One Student That They'll Never Forget | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
And They Say American Industry's Dead
"Used to work in a warehouse where we made feminine hygiene products. The pads came out of one machine into several different branded boxes. Both the nickel gas station pads and the 10 dollar a box pads."
"Also we had one product of pads where we imported them from china, then repackaged them into our own boxes. I didn't have a problem with that. The problem I had was the box had an emblem saying 'made in America.'"
"Would've been ok if it said assembled in America. But no."-GGATHELMIL
Studio deals, scripted drama, and failed products? What else can fall under an NDA? Let's find out:
Duck Soup
"Used to work for Disney. They only used Disney employees for the test screenings of Marvel movies so I got to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (already great) and an early version of Doctor Strange that needed A LOT of work."
"When we were giving feedback to the moderator the writers were sitting in the back with their heads in their hands looking very defeated."
"It was a confusing mess but they fleshed out the characters more so it was better by the time it was released. Oh also they used to kill a lot of ducks with pyro at Disney World when they did the IllumiNations show at Epcot. Shhhhh."-meany_beany
Doggos Deserving Better
"Adogo is a doggy daycare in Minnesota that made me sign an NDA for two years saying I was not allowed to talk about the company mainly, sadly, because they treat the workers and dogs like sh*t."
"No care for how many dogs were packed into a room, which is both unsafe for the dogs and the dog attendant. Often I'd be alone in a small room with up to 25+ dogs, most who only had the most minor of behavioral tests done to see if they would play well in daycare."
"Owner also tried to get around not paying my worker's comp when I did get injured on the job, and whenever anybody put in their two weeks after realizing what a toxic work environment it was (which was often) he would punish them with scheduling them all week or make them open to close 12 hours for all their shifts."
"If you're in Minnesota and looking for a reputable dog daycare: STAY AWAY FROM ADOGO. If in the Twin Cities I would recommend Dog Days, not perfect, but they actually seem to care."-Gday613
The Bee Problem
"I used to work in a call center that had Bayer Advanced (yes, THAT Bayer) as a client. Bayer knew/knows full well that their neonicotinoid based pesticide/gardening products killed bees and were responsible for colony collapse."
"We were instructed to bold face deny and/or lie to the customer or caller if we were ever asked about it. We were also instructed to lie about the spray nozzles on the bottles."
"Bayer knew they sucked and were almost always completely DOA defective, but they refused to admit it and decided it was cheaper to just keep mailing replacement nozzles."-wizardswrath00
Everything from a doggy day-care to an evil corporate overlord who knew full well their product was harming the earth can be covered under an NDA. The lack of specificity of what an NDA can be used for, in part, is responsible for this; the other part is the human beings can really be a little scummy.
In the instances where the NDA protects the integrity of a working project, we see the (likely) original intended use. Are you under any NDAs right now? And when they're up, will you go on and spill all those secrets?