Google Ventures Launches with “We May Steal Your Idea” Caveat

"However, please do not send us information that you consider to be confidential or proprietary."

Well, what do you expect? Heed this advice from Google and you should be fine. It would be stupid for them to bend the other way - people would spam them with half-baked ideas to have grounds for bogus lawsuits, should they happen to implement something roughly similar later on.

Nothing to see here, IMHO.

Wow, Hacker News is playing by Fox News rules.

The warning is to avoid situations where someone has sent intellectual property without legal basis and then feels that that property has been misappropriated. It's entirely normal for a VC to not want to hear secrets until a relationship is established precisely to avoid the possibility of being suspected of stealing ideas.

A better headline would be Google Ventures Launches with "Don't Tell Us Stuff And Then Try To Sue Us" Caveat.

All VC firms have the "we may steal your idea" caveat, which is actually the "we may invest in another company who has a similar idea if their implementation or business plan is more viable" caveat.

"We cannot and do not accept responsibility for protecting against the misuse or disclosure of any information unless we have expressly agreed (in writing) to do so."

Well, of course they aren't responsible for protecting your information unless they're contractually bound to do so. If you tell me something, I'm free to tell whomever I like unless we've signed an NDA. This is bog-standard; a total non-issue.

Bah, what Google-hating FUD. What investor will promise to not disclose everything you say to them without a NDA? Even if they did put it in their contract, they probably wouldn't be bound by it, as NDA's need to be very specific as to what they cover:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement

i assume the YC agreement has a similar clause, so why not accuse YC of having a we-may-steal-your-idea 'caveat' too? as a matter of fact, show me on VC agreement that doesn't have such a clause and i'll buy you a beer.