• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 2, 2014

Non-compete clauses in hiring contracts don't always stick -- but that doesn't stop former employees from trying to squash any new relationship, such as in the case of a former Amazon employee taking a job at Google. Company A has filed a lawsuit against one of its former cloud computing employees -- Zoltan Szabadi -- saying the waiting period stands at 18 months after the departure, per GeekWire.

One of the biggest issue with non-compete clauses these days involves employees using their own computers and mobile devices -- better known as the bring your own device (BYOD) trend -- allowing employees to store names, numbers and sensitive intellectual property some might believe owned by employers. Metadata in digital files can reveal more than some think.

A Federal judge who ruled on a similar case in 2012, against Daniel Powers, a former Amazon Web Services sales chief, found Amazon's ban on competition too broad, but said the company could keep Powers from working directly with his former employers' customers for nine months.

Non-competes are common in the tech work. They aim to keep one company's secrets from another as intellectual property gets transferred with the employee. The latest suit filed on June 27, states Szabadi went to work for Google in May, violating a non-compete agreement.

Google and Szabadi had crafted a six-month "non-solicitation of Amazon partners with whom, "'to the best of [Szabadi's] memory' he had had "'material direct content' or had seen "'confidential information.'"

Evidently, not good enough for Amazon -- which asked the court to restrain Szabadi from working for Google in a competitive position for 18 months.