In the beginning…

“Don’t be evil” is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google, originally suggested by Google employees Paul Buchheit at a meeting. Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he “wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out,” adding that the slogan was “also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent.” —Wikipedia

Google formalized the idea by making “You can make money without doing evil” the sixth point of its 10-point corporate philosophy.

Fast forward to March, 2012…

“This change [the new privacy policy] violates Google’s prior privacy policies, which deceived and misled consumers by stating that Google would not utilize information provided by a consumer in connection with his or her use of one service, with any other service, for any reason, without the user’s consent,” the three plaintiffs, represented by law firm of Grant & Eisenhofer PA, said in the filing.

Take another look at Buchheit’s words, “in our opinion, we’re kind of exploiting the users to some extent.”

I’m sure that Google, like everyone else, believes that these and similar actions aren’t exploitation, they are “improving/enhancing user experience.”

The problem, of course, is that phrases, such as ‘don’t be evil; and words like ‘ethical’ are fluid, i.e., their meaning changes in conjunction with various cultures and societal changes within each culture, so there are no absolutes to rely on. (I’ve addressed this quandary and ethical fluidity many times.)

What do you think? Does Google’s new approach to privacy violate its ‘don’t be evil’ philosophy?

Flickr image credit: opensource.com

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2012 at 10:09 am and is filed under Culture, Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: ethical, Google
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