If you opt for a prohibition, how do you plan to enforce it? Are you willing to hire someone who is dating a current employee? Must they stop dating? What problems might arise as a result of your policy, in either direction?What should company leadership do when it learns that the firm’s founder is “fraternizing” with an employee who is in a subordinate position? Google co-founder Sergey Brin became romantically involved with a Google employee and subsequently divorced his wife.

Complicating things further, Brin’s former sister-in-law and former brother-in-law (his ex-wife’s family members) both have major positions at Google. Brin insists that nothing about his new—or former—relationship will impact Google from a business perspective. But some suspect that this story is only the beginning of a larger problem for Google.

Google maintains an informal approach to workplace dating, and its code of conduct does not prohibit dating between employees.

The code states:

Romantic relationships between co-workers can, depending on the work roles and respective positions of the co-workers involved, create an actual or apparent conflict of interest. If a romantic relationship does create an actual or apparent conflict, it may require changes to work arrangements or even the termination of employment of either or both individuals involved.