Ah, yes, the dreaded "non-compete" clause. It's a great way for an employer to stick it to a departing worker under the guise of business fairness. If you're keen to do marketing for big tech companies, for example, one non-compete clause can really ruin your business interests.

To Amazon, however, it's a different story. The company feels it has every right to protect the work and ideas that departing strategic partnerships manager Zoltan Szabadi had while at Amazon. And it goes without saying: Amazon would much prefer that he not use his time at the company to bolster Google while working at his new job as a partner reseller ecosystem manager on Google's Cloud Platform.

So, Amazon has gone done just what you might expect; it filed suit in Seattle's King County Superior Court on June 27, claiming that Szabadi's switch to Google violates the "non-compete, non-solicitation, and trade secret restrictions" of the employment contract he previously signed with Amazon. As reported by GeekWire, that non-compete provision in Szabadi's contract was designed to run for a full 12-month period.

All this comes after Google itself slapped restrictions on Szabadi's employment, which included an agreement that he would not pursue customers he otherwise attempted to engage in business with while at Amazon for six months, and an agreement that he would not attempt to recruit others from Amazon for that same period of time.

To Amazon, however, that's not enough. "In the Noncompetition Agreement, Szabadi promised to abide by limited noncompetition and non-disclosure restrictions. These narrow restrictions are intended to protect Amazon's trade secrets and its highly confidential information, as well as Amazon's current and prospective customer relationships, its existing and prospective business relationships, and its confidential plans and strategies," reads Amazon's lawsuit.

Amazon is now asking the court to prevent Szabadi from working for Google "in a competitive position" for 18 months, in addition to a 12-month ban on recruiting or hiring any Amazon employees to Google.

Neither Google nor Amazon have issued any additional comment about the suit. This isn't Amazon's first trip into the courts to attempt to enforce a non-compete clause, however.

As Geekwire noted, Amazon failed in 2012 to obtain all the restrictions it sought against former Amazon Web Services global sales vice president, Daniel Powers. But Amazon seems to have learned that a broader non-compete clause might not sail, but a much more specific non-compete clause could pass muster. In this case, it's possible that Amazon's specific phrasing regarding preventing Szabadi from working in a Google job that deals with "partners or resellers of cloud computing" could give its lawsuit a bit more strength this time around.