It was Google's policy in November 2007 to counter offers to its employees from Facebook within an hour, according to e-mails released last week during the wage conspiracy case going on in California. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed in the e-mails that the policy had been in existence for only 24 hours before it leaked outside of the executive management group.

In the lawsuit, Google, Apple, Intel, and Adobe were accused by current and former employees of agreeing not to poach each others' workers to avoid being played against one another to raise salaries. Both sides in the case agreed on a settlement of $324 million, but US District Judge Lucy Koh has yet to approve it. Koh posted the Google e-mails Friday after considering a motion from Google to seal them, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the e-mails, Vijay Gill, an engineering manager at Google, forwards a snippet of an e-mail he received from an undisclosed source to two executives saying that "Google is open to significantly enhancing the offers to candidates who also have offers from Facebook… within an hour to Googlers who give notice about getting a Facebook offer." One of the executives, Bill Coughran, passed Gill's e-mail along to the executive management group e-mail list writing that the discussion had leaked. "Since I announced our 1 hour policy exactly 24 hours ago we should be embarrassed and disgusted by this leak," Schmidt wrote.

Though Facebook was not one of the companies involved in the alleged conspiracy, another set of documents show Google staffing director Arnnon Geshuri writing that he approached Facebook staffers at a 2008 event and told them "we would be watching them." Koh has expressed doubt that the proposed settlement is fair and could rule at any time, according to the Journal.