The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition Google shareholders are getting some modest future-proofing. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says a novel deal protects owners of the company's non-voting stock against a discount -- and from the day when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin no longer wield full control. The convoluted legal settlement, however, only goes to show it is better to avoid a shareholder caste system in the first place. Shareholders opposed Google's plan to issue non-voting stock. They argued that Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, who already hold supervoting Class B stock, would become even more entrenched if Google started issuing non-voting C shares rather than standard voting A shares. There is a case for protecting the autonomy of founders up to a point, but a misalignment of economic and voting interests can cause trouble. Starting at a 1-per-cent discount, Class C holders will be compensated in cash or stock for part or all of the gap, up to a 5-per-cent discount. That turns out to be coincidentally on a par with the long-term discount at Telus, where an ultimately successful plan to merge voting and non-voting shares met resistance last year from U.S. hedge fund Mason Capital.