Google’s Don’t Be Evil Not “Ordained Motto” Says Marissa Mayer

I think they try to be good but when you get as big as them its impossible, you have to answer to your shareholders at the end of the day.

A question that needs addressing is will they give the chinese data they want if requested from someones AppEngine app without their permission?

try search for gmail on google; you see NO advertisements on the right or top. Why? If you try to advertise for this keyword, the MINIMUM is some 25$. Explain to me that this is no evil. If the adwords program is really based on competing companies trying to gain top level access to a certain keyword, it should have been an open game decided by the market, not by google trying to wipe out any chance of anyone trying to push anything close to gmail. They know gmail is extremely crucial to their plans and they will do anything to keep it that way, good or bad, just like any other corporation.

I used to be big fan of Google but these days, donot know the exact reasons but I have lot of respect for MSFT.

It depends on how EVIL is defined.

Can a purely, 100% ethical global giant thrive in a cut throat business world - when others are constantly looking for any weak link to attack

Should you proactively attack BEFORE being attacked

Perhaps the GOAL should be less evil than what has been traditional

But the VIPs of Google are human with flaws and egos just like everyone else surviving in the business world

You simply can not overcome a lifetime of human and societal fallibilties because of idealism

google has gotten huge and it’s impossible not to offend someone in the world based on its technology and endeavors. It’s a huge company like IBM, Coke, GE, or others… Someone in the world will be offended by something that somone does within the company, but in the overall, the company will prevail and people will embrace that company. Who’d buy a $5 cup of coffee, guess Starbucks won that debate, but sure they also piss off people too. Nice profits for the shareholders though… Nice article Michael

Raghu, that has a lot more to do with your ads’ quality score and search volume for that term than the fact that Google happens to own a product by that name. It’s the same if you try to advertise for almost any single word with tens of thousands of daily searches or more…

They will find their values and get them sorted, I am sure of that.
Did not lose my belief in Google’s long range vision which I am sure will be closely tied with their core values.

Dan (6),
Are you saying that there is not a SINGLE entity wanting to advertise for ‘gmail’ keyword whereas ‘email’ keyword has tons of ads to the right and top?

I don’t think so. In fact, google does not even say it openly that they don’t want to display ads for the keyword ‘gmail’ directly, they just have such a high $ amount for the keyword, no one will go for it.
Raghu

Marissa’s pretty damn hot though.

On the evil scale she’s allotted some leeway. I mean, seriously.

She can ordain my motto.

Eh - but, that aside, I don’t see this as any real shift away from the “Don’t Be Evil” thing… we have to consider that “evil” isn’t exactly something that’s been written in stone. Well, there was that movie with Charlton Heston, but I think the stone was really Styrofoam so, you know…

(I think you know my position on Google and its evilness - but just to be clear, I don’t see any seeping from them. Yet. And hopefully that’ll remain the case for awhile.)

It was an impossible, far-reaching, awful motto to begin with.

It’s all mathematics.

Here is more on 6. If I were MSN, Yahoo or AOL, I would love to advertise for gmail keyword for some 10 cents if there were no competition (as seen by current search results). But this is simply impossible since google controls and does not allow any ads for the keyword effectively by keeping the price artificially high.

/me searches for Marissa’s twitter acct.

I think that Google still lives up to its “Do no evil” motto. Of course there are a few things here and there which ring the bell, but that’s sort of unavoidable for a big and diverse company with plenty of people. The important things and the general direction are still of no evil nature.

For anyone thinking about incorporation their new company right now, who is interested in doing good in the world, consider incorporating as a B Corporation:

http://www.bcorporation.net/

This basically means writing social responsibility guidelines directly into your articles of incorporation. Later, when faced with hard decisions, shareholder value will be a major consideration, but it won’t be the one big overwhelming consideration it is with public companies today. Any shareholders that come along later have already bought into the deal.

This is the sort of change that would be very hard to make to a company once it has gotten large, if it can be done at all.

Raghu, maybe they figure that if someone is searching for ‘gmail’, the probably want Google’s Gmail service (for which they have the trademark and the domain anyway).

Another way to look at it is, the keyword is worth $25 as far as google is concerned. They’ve bought it from themselves for that price, and are paying the opportunity cost of not selling it to somebody else for less than that.

Michael

What about covering the Google groups which is the No:1 source of spam to the Usenet. Google is literally destroying Newsgroups.

In my opinion the Worst Evil things Google do are Google Groups and Google pages ( Home of thousands of Spam/Scam sites.

Very nice link, Charlie - thanks. Definitely hadn’t heard of this yet.

Google is great, just don’t be evil…

There are a lot of confused responses to this article.

First: “not being evil” is not the same as “not offending anyone”.

Second: It is just not true that the business world in general is “evil”. Most businesspeople are ethical. Not every corporation is like Microsoft. A company can compete, and make a profit for stockholders, without being evil.

Google, in my opinion, does not live up to its motto. If you are employed by Google overseas, you have to sign a form agreeing that the legal venue for disputes with your employer is Santa Clara, California. Since a significant number of Google employees outside the USA can’t even get a US visa, that essentially means that Google automatically wins any legal dispute with those employees, regardless of the merits. That’s being evil.

life is vicious cycle of greed , moral, ethics and courage and google cant scape from that without dirting its hand… does it make sense?

It might sound like a trite motto, but it has certainly convinced millions of people to trust their personal data to Google.

Well, they basically just told everyone it’s small problem and we want to nip it in the butt.

Will it work?

I’m moving away from using their services but that won’t stop others.

My vote’s on Microsoft but the innovation done at Microsoft is somewhat disappointing. It could be so much more.
The way for Microsoft to stop google from controlling everything is to open up more than google does, to embrace the services provided by others.
Good business partners add value and I think Microsoft understands this better than anyone else.

Google’s strategy: we need to control as much as possible. The more services we offer, the better, this gives the user more choice.
But it also locks them in and it kills the competition, perhaps even the user’s business. But we don’t care. We want more power.
When necessary we open up, this takes the power away from the user.

They don’t say it out loud but they divide & conquer.
The internet was supposed to give more power to the user.
But Google does exactly the opposite. They take the power away from the user. And I guess some people realize this is happening but there’s very little they do about it. It’s like global warming.
Aware of what’s happening you continue to drive your car.

I’m gonna make sure my next car uses less than the one I have right now and I’m gonna limit the use of google’s services.

Oh and I think Microsoft needs to buy 37signals.

To Marissa Mayer, What happened to google health… ??

“What about covering the Google groups which is the No:1 source of spam to the Usenet. Google is literally destroying Newsgroups.

In my opinion the Worst Evil things Google do are Google Groups and Google pages ( Home of thousands of Spam/Scam sites.”

Are you joking? Did you just get your first net account yesterday? I’ve been on usenet almost 20 years now, and Google did nothing to make it the spam monster it is today. The nature of the protocols governing usenet first of all make it impossible to stop spam, much worse than open-relay SMTP servers. Secondly, Google’s acquisition of DejaNews and reconstruction of the public usenet archives going back to the early 80s was a TREMENDOUS public service, preserving history that would have been lost forever on old DAT tapes.

The Google bashing on this site is getting old, it seems like grasping at straws. Facebook, for example, was founded on the theft of an idea from someone else. Lots of junk Web2.0 companies collect user passwords and scrape other sites violating ToS. That’s what I call evil.

Google’s crime is simply being successful, and it’s still a small company compared to MS. Did Google conspire to “bundle” like MS, strong arming OEMings? Do they produce evil strategy documents like the Halloween documents? Do they join standards committees merely to gum them up? Are they resisting standards like ODF in favor of crappy locked in formats like OOXML by bribing UN/ISO officials? Attempts to block governments from switching to Linux, attempts to block OLTC using Linux, IE4-7 crapping all over web standards for years, threating Linux with patents, and on and on. I mean jesus, we have court documents with MS internal emails, and leaked MS documents showing how “evil” they are, we have nothing like this on Google.

I don’t think Google’s perfect, but if I were to sort Fortune-1000 companies and most Valley companies by evilness, they would certainly be lower on the list than most.

Google is evil to me, their Google toolbar and desktop search is everywhere when you want to download something, I absolutely hate these things.

Yes, Google has moved beyond the threshold of evil. They’ve brainwashed a whole generation of young educated people into drones by feeding them and treating them with lots of comps, while going after all of the major players on the web. Very Microsoft 2.0. I think Google’s best days are behind it.

The biggest problem google with google is simply they dont give a s*** about their small customers. Anyone who used adsense and ran into problems probably had experience with their automated replies and general “we can do what we want” attituted. I had around adsense account with 15k $ banned because i was using “double account”. And for every explanation or question i had afterwards, i got automated reply…

The ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto which Google gleefully promoted over these past few years has now become an albatross around their throats.
They should really come out now and say it was just a company soundbite at that time and was never intended to be a long term company slogan.

Just as Companies like Coke, or Apple use different slogans each new generation, perhaps Google should look at ways in trying to introduce a new slogan that represents a newer version of their ‘Don’t Be Evil’ greed.

Any suggestions?

Anyone who thinks not being evil is something that is hard to do, should really be put to sleep.

how about “be evil” ?

Google has gotten FAR to much power over our data, and it’s increasing daily, which is becoming very dangerous for a big number of reasons.

I don’t use Google products anymore and suggest to think about it, as well.

I feel Marissa’s statement is being overanalyzed here..

hmmm, it sounds good but is quite negative expression.

Great discussion about Good, Evil, and Google. To be fair to Google and Marissa Mayer, a link to the source of the TechCrunch post - an interview published today in The Sydney Morning Herald - provides much-needed context:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/biz.....68177.html

Not to mention a great photo of Marissa Mayer.

It’s interesting no one on this thread has brought up Google’s “evil” imitation of FREE411, w/ Goog411.

Cringely has a write-up on it here:

The Next Microsoft: Google is learning too well from the master.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pu.....03354.html

They lean more and more to the dark side the more employees that they have who don’t own boatloads of stock. Think about it, you work in the same position as someone who is a millionaire, bound to be some tension and money grubbing going on somewhere.

And then we saw that Non-Compete they made the Double Clickers sign. Enforceable or not… that was evil.

“First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate’s code to apply and you’re not. And thirdly, the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. ”

Really, this blog is like a reality show with some of the comments and editing of what goes on. Read the quote as a whole rather for context like any educated person would.

The motto is just a PR mechanism, some story to tell. To @Jack’s point, Marissa’s statement is probably being overanalyzed, but can you imagine her making the same statement 5 years ago? There was no ambiguity then, but nowadays….

I see a funny similarity to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, when the pigs start explaining things a bit differently over the course of time. The story progressively changes to accommodate the needs/desires of the pigs.

I see motivated employees looking for creative ways to increase shareholder value, and the places where those opportunities exist run head-long into the “do no evil” motto. It’s business, but desire/greed is human nature. The Googlers aren’t any less susceptible to this than the folks in Redmond.

Let’s not expect them to be perfect, but don’t expect angels with halos, either.

What is this place? A tabloid like ValleyWag?

All companies are evil, but some are more evil than others.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

The bottom line is Google is the “least evil” corporate company we’ve seen in a loooooooong time. I’ve been partners with them on three content companies and they have been amazing partners. They call when they don’t have to, they offer new products and services constantly, and if you’re not happy they pull out all the stops.

I think folks need to consider the source more often when they hear “google is now evil” accusations. Is it an SEO who had their site removed saying this? Is it a company like PayPerPost that was based on hidden paid links and deception saying this?

Google is big, powerful, and rich now… when they do little things it can have big effects. Evil? Well, that would imply intent to do something bad in my mind and I think that’s is not often the case.

Even in the case of KNOL, which content providers are really scared about, is Google being evil or are they just not realizing how encroaching the project is to publishers?! I think the latter… sometime folks at big companies don’t realize how big their actions can seem. When we did Netscape/Propeller I never thought folks would react to it as “Calacanis/AOL is trying to destroy digg” but some did. Of course, when you have multibillion dollar TimeWarner behind you folks let their minds go crazy… what if AOL/TW put Netscape vote buttons everywhere?!?!?! (i wish you could have that support).

Anyway, Google is great… I’m a happy partner.

great comment Jason!

SEo is getting philosophical, that’s the problem. All SEO are philosophers, analysing this from philosophy we can say a lot, but in reality, signs and symbols available on Google and Google as a mediator is great, not only for the partner but for the users also!

@Jason

Bottom line - you are afraid of them! (like everybody else)

As so often Evil its also a question of size… i agreed that people at Google go around thinking what business can destroy or what site will they will aim at but when you are creating new stuff or when you are so DOMINANT you will tend to warm other business and disrupted them thus creating malcontent beings…. i know everytime i hear of change in GG results i tend lose my sleep but somedays the changes are also for the better … so maybe some times Google is more like an Angel than a Demon doing too much Go-o-d ?

I get confused on the “evil story” when aggregators start competing with their partners. And no, I’m not a communist.

Think Microsoft Windows then Internet Explorer.

Think Comcast then CN8/VoD.

Think (insert phone carrier here) then making it impossible to find services like google.

I heard a rumor that Google will create a wikipedia-like site to steal traffic from Wikipedia.

Still working on that …., but I’m still a big fan of Google. I think they have done a great job overall.

I have followed Google for a long time, and I can honestly say I don’t know of a single thing they do which is evil, except one.

When they hint at other companies violating AntiTrust law, or they try to get the government to add restrictions to bandwidth auctions. Just because the masses want free bandwidth, doesn’t make the quest for such a thing gallant. If AT&T outbids Google for bandwidth, it should be allowed to do anything it likes with that bandwidth, including burying it. This is America Google, and property rights exist whether you support them or not. Communism doesn’t sound evil either, but in practise it’s all kinds of evil. Remember, the WORST evils are commited by do-gooders in the name of altruism.

Evil, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. But it wouldn’t have been as effective to say, “We’ll try to be as good as we can.” Don’t be evil has a certain ring to it.

I know you never will, but at least try to lighten up a little, will you?

I work at Google. We’re very proud of Don’t Be Evil, and we wouldn’t change it is we could. The only “frustration” we feel is when members of the press or public loudly proclaim “evil!” when what they really mean is “I didn’t personally like/agree with that decision” or even “I assume everyone is really nefarious and greedy, and so even though this thing Google is doing _looks_ good, I’m sure they must have ulterior motives”.

In that sense, “Don’t Be Evil” becomes some kind of hammer used to bash Google over the head whether or not it’s actually doing anything wrong. I wish people would reserve judgment for the times when we truly screw up.

Google will either live up to its promise or they won’t.

Given the implicit trust given to them by users and their access to the most unique consequential data in the world, Google would be wise to set for themselves the highest standards of corporate ethics. No organization is perfect, after all, machines run as they are programmed, people are another story altogether.

I would love a five minute conversation with Brin, Page and Schmidt on their ethical “report card.”

I’ve been defending Techcrunch as not being some faggoty gossip blog for the longest time and I’ve kept reading.

But when an employee says that they have a motto to not be evil, and then another employee explains that it’s not necessarily a company wide motto just something they all had agreed was a good plan.

And then you criticize them for it with some petty fucking opinion on how if they drop the motto everyone’s gonna care, I mean jesus man.

You sound like some political pundit on fox news bitching about the democrats.

Bye bye bookmark.

What will be interesting is when Google starts aggregating your digital presence and tele-presence, hence removing barriers to your personal privacy, and replacing it with some form of synthetic privacy, all the while pointing you to their mission statement–Don’t be evil.

The next great evil is the proliferation of subtle coersion visa via behavioural marketing, and Baynesian mathematical models of your demographic/geographical/lifestyle/ eco-system.

What’s of greater concern is not these companies’ intent to ‘improve’ your life, but the fact that they are building up a monolithic power structure based on surveillance and guidance.

I’m leery of living in a ether-gulag.

Don’t be a target audience–Coupland.

They will definately become evil.

All those PHD’s and execs are getting arrogant.

They’re not perfect, no one is. It’s hard to live up to a goal like that. Try it in your own life. I find it admirable that adopted the slogan, and it seems that they try. That’s the best anyone (or any corporation) can do.

Google is a great partner for all the smaller guys, until they offer the exact thing you’re working on and become your direct competitor. Then the question becomes “what is evil”

@Peter Kasting

Couldn’t agree more. My sentiments exactly.

Maybe they’re holding onto the motto in case one of the Google guys someday decides to try to run for president of the United States? It might be a good campaign slogan? (y/n/a)

;P nmw

@Peter Kasting:

RE “‘Don’t Be Evil’ becomes some kind of hammer used to bash Google over the head.”

But who put the hammer there? Or who let someone put it there and liked it when the hammer was facing out, but not so much when it inevitably gets turned around. That’s why a slogan like that is dangerous (It’s good to be dangerous sometimes, but got to quit while ahead). Can’t only like it when it’s convenient. But I hear you. But I also think Google has way too much market share in many, many markets. But you guys do have some great products and services too, so definately keep up the good work.

PS: “Don’t Be Evil” had a good run, but time for a new one. Here’s my nomination: “We’re Google, so f*ck off!”

I can’t accept the argument that they shouldn’t have to “not be evil” anymore because its impossible to do so and make as much money as possible.

To me, thats the whole point of a motto like that - a statement that you will put moral concerns ahead of your bottom line. Its too bad they stopped living up to the promise, I really liked Google at one time.

I like what Mikael Bergkvist said with “Anyone who thinks not being evil is something that is hard to do, should really be put to sleep.”

While I don’t think that should be a literal response, I can’t figure out why a lot of people seem to think you have to be evil to make a profit or provide services to the world. Seems to me that a lot of people are confusing “evil” with anything that goes against personal desires.

A lot of (in my opinion flawed) view points seem to start with if Google competes in a new field and puts another company out of business then they must have targeted that company for extinction. But in reality simply competing with someone else is not evil.

Take the example above of Google trying to make Wikipedia extinct. When in actuality their public statement is that they were trying to solve a credibility flaw in the Wikipedia system and they figured they could do a better job of making that happen building from the ground up with credibility designed in before the first article gets published.

Seems like there are a lot of similar arguments where people say Google is evil because they want to branch out of simple search.

Remember their overall master plan was “can we index the entirety of human knowledge”. Making an effort to do that is not evil. And even experimenting with ways to make money off that index is not evil. If you are going to index the world you need to stay alive long enough to do it.

@Jason - hi, me again -

“The bottom line is Google is the “least evil” corporate company we’ve seen in a loooooooong time. I’ve been partners with them on three content companies and they have been amazing partners. They call when they don’t have to, they offer new products and services constantly, and if you’re not happy they pull out all the stops.”

Of course they do…the last time they checked, you were still Jason Calacanis, weren’t you - not some run-of-the-mill nobody webmaster having that webmaster’s usual obscure run-of-the-mill problems.

Try being a comparatively broke/unknown person with sites to run and AdSense to sell and see how far you get with it - no, really. Thousands of us could tell you stories. Google does not answer our emails and certainly doesn’t go out of their way (ha!) to “contact us first”. Google does NOT do what *we* want them to do. So we bend to them or we die. And sometimes even bending for them isn’t enough - you still get blacklisted like I was years ago, and penalized at every turn, like I still am today. And they don’t want explanations about this or that or the other thing from nobodys like me… they don’t care, since I and most of us on the Web today are nobodys anyway. What do we matter to the big multi-billion dollar corporation? The biggest joke going about Google Customer Service, Jason? That there is none *drumroll*

Then in walks Jason Calacanis dripping money and web celebrity and of course they’re going to kiss your a**. How else would you expect it to play out? You NOT having a good experience - seriously? Impossible.

–your guardian imp

I have read this article three times now and am still scratching my head - what exactly did she say that indicated that they are moving away from the motto? I think this techcrunch post and the article proves her very point - that Google is subject to more scrutiny because of the logo. the original article is actually pretty fair and makes this point.

Admit it, Google got a lot of cool points trumpeting that unofficial motto. But I guess they’re into a whole new ballgame and that is satisfying shareholders now and it is never easy. Most of the time could mean overstepping boundaries that smack or arrogance. Now that will be its biggest irony.

Best.
alain
http://www.morphexchange.com

Admit it, Google got a lot of cool points trumpeting that unofficial motto. But I guess they’re into a whole new ballgame and that is satisfying shareholders now and it is never easy. Most of the time could mean overstepping boundaries that smack or arrogance. Now that will be its biggest irony. Hope we don’t fall for it, too. Dream on. [www.morphexchange.com]

I wasn´t aware of that motto´s existence.

Primarily, corporations have an obligation to create returns for their investors and owners. That isn’t always compatible with “don’t be evil”. Hopefully governments will put laws in place to reduce the evil profitable options available to corporations, so they only have good options available.

Marissa Mayer is a bitch. Period.

I think they try to be good but when you get as big as them its impossible, you have to answer to your shareholders at the end of the day.

Wrong. Because of Google’s share structure, Larry and Sergey cannot be outvoted by shareholders. They have the majority of the votes and can completely control the direction of the company.

Google is more successful then its founders ever dreamed when they came up with this slogan. Sure its a nice idea, but is even possible not to be evil to some one somewhere when you have as much power as Google has? The only way they could not be evil is if they opened up more and reduced their dominance of the Internet. All that power concentrated in one organization is just not what the Internet should be about.

Hokum. Snake-oil salesmen. Smoke and mirrors. etc…

Its popular culture to believe that Google are the guys in shinning white armour whom are taking on the mega-bad company (that you all made rich by going with the herd). Maybe I get it, one day I’ll be RAD, in touch with the common person, take a skateboard to work to my own board meeting.

Google Earth, now how did these guys come up with that one? Hmmm, these are really smart fellows they’ve got working for them. They must have come up with that one. I mean, they got some kind of prize for that in 2004 didn’t they?

Trusting in someone whom rides a skateboard isn’t the same as trusting someone whom trades it in for a jumbo jet. There is always someone somewhere looking for a new algorithm. It ain’t google yet - sorry, misspelt that too

Yep, we are all young once and make mistakes. I trusted one of my older brothers whom enjoyed fishing. I tried it and took his advice on the best way to kill a fish; smash it against the rocks. Took me another twenty years before I thought about that again. You feel more for life with age.

Of all possible scenarios, this 21st world is the worst. Arrogance with willful ignorance. Will the Star Trek enterprise of the future with its healthy and morally good idealists be contacting new civilisations with the none-ET hens cooked up on level 2?

Good luck
Ken Murray