I'm a lawyer too, and I've never seen a company give this kind of provision for employees or even management. It is, as the article points out, highly unusual and the potential risks for the company would be extremely high. I have seen the "retained in memory" provision in NDAs, but as might be imagined, they are hard to enforce and even harder to prove, so the reseult is that the disclosing side doesn't let the other see the real family jewels. There is no way Google has an analogous provision allowing their former employees to use confidential information that's retained in their minds. Very curious about the actual text of the provision and how it might apply (if at all) to any potential criminal actions.