LoneCoder: Google: Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral?

[Evan Leibovitch]

I have to side with Kihara.

"Don't do evil" is _not_ a universal theme in business, unless you 
extend it to "don't do evil to our shareholders". The compelling drive 
is what is cynically referred to as "building shareholder value", 
whether it's in dividends or the value of the stock. Serving customers 
and obeying the law are merely methods to achieve the primary goal. 
Being ethical, for the sake of more than PR, is most certainly not a 
constant in the business world.

There are most certainly businesses who, while successful, have made 
ethical practise more than a slogan -- while the PR from such behaviour 
is great for the bottom line, for the business it's a result rather than 
a cause of "doing the right thing". One company that comes to mind 
quickly in this regard is The Body Shop and its company-wide policy 
against animal testing.

Every company wants to be known as ethical, because not being seen that 
way is bad PR. So the way to measure the seriousness of the claim to by 
judging actions rather than words. By most metrics in this regard, 
ethical comparison of Microsoft and Google is IMO downright absurd. 
There is a big difference between "trying to do good but not always 
getting it just right" and "doing evil while calling it good". I don't 
see Google accused of using drug-pusher tactics in the developing world, 
an analogy often (and IMO with good reason) applied to Microsoft.

So Cringely had problems getting an interview in 2004. As has been 
suggested, this may be more a matter of being overwhelmed than a desire 
to create a compound somewhere with a big shark tank and a self-destruct 
mechanism. I certainly had no problem getting access to Brin in 1999, 
before the bandwagon effect set in:
http://www.opticality.com/Press/ZopeCorp/ZDNet990723/view

Sure, Google is out to make a buck. But I don't see it trying to do that 
through the advocacy of two-tier email, claims of "open" standards that 
really aren't, or currying favour by voluntarily handling personal 
detail to governments, as its competitors have been accused of doing.

It is valuable to continue to keep a cynical eye trained on Google? Of 
course, if for no other reasons than the possibility that one day the 
company's visionaries may get overwhelmed by the bean-counters. Once 
upon a time Caldera, the company that is now SCO, was run by good guys too.

However, so far I have not seen much to indicate that Google has in any 
significant way broken its motto. Complaint about their transparency may 
be somewhat valid, though I would suggest that it's more accessible than 
companies that are actually regulated for the sake of the "public good" 
(broadcasters, utilities. etc.). Still, arguments with the company's 
decision-making processes don't bear any logical relation to issues of 
ethics. They owe accountability for their ethics to nobody but 
themselves; the rest of us are bystanders unless you own stock in them 
or their competitors.

If you want to debate the specific activities you mentioned as lapses of 
ethics, bring 'em on. I certainly don't agree with the assertion that 
Google is "attempting to acquire control over all forms of media 
including music, books and email". In my own research on some of the 
battles between Google and "rights holders" on intellectual property 
issues, I (and I imagine most fans of free software would) certainly 
find more affinity with Google's positions.

Google is a nice, comfortable target which has probably grown too big, 
too quickly, for its own good. It's resisted direct attack from some of 
the biggest players in IT. Moreover, given its claimed intent to act 
ethically, it's under tighter scrutiny than most other companies who 
admit they're just out to make a buck. So scrutiny is natural and attack 
is inevitable.

Sure, one can complain that Google's aim is not to be Sergey Brin's 
definition of evil, and that may not always jive with how you or I would 
define the term. Still, on the balance I think the Internet is at least 
a slightly better place to be because Google is around. So far the 
ethics I've personally evaluated have not disappointed. And, on the 
whole, I'm personally willing to cut some slack to a company that has 
clearly become bigger than it expected to be.

If, in the long run, Google *does* disappoint, well that's why the 
marketplace exists. I'm not a shareholder, so it doesn't matter to me if 
one day someone else does to Google what it's been doing to Microsoft 
and AOL.

- Evan

PS: As for the Linux references, I note that Google is still the only 
system of its type and scale to provide a Linux-specific search facility 
(www.goggle.com/linux), which has been around intact since almost day one.

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml