Google was evil, is evil, and will be evil

I love this one by Stuart Carlson! Hmm… How will public perception fall?

From its inception Google mission has been to organize the world’s information, however right alongside that mission was a corollary and necessary agenda to insert advertising into every aspect of a user’s online experience. Google is an advertising engine just as much as it is a search engine, and all those cool tools that Google comes out with are just so many more loss leaders meant to draw you in.

Google’s actions have shown that its long term goal is to merge advertising with all its product offerings. The broader vision here is that all media services should somehow be tied to advertising, including WiFi hubs, Internet content channels, even cheap laptop computers. I think that Google tools and services are great, but this vision of a universal big brother of advertising is kind of scary - kind of evil.

It is interesting to consider just how much information about its users Google actually stores and tracks. They are one of the main owners and guardians of what John Battelle refers to as The “Database of Intentions.” The database of intention is, according to Battelle, “the aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result.” i.e. a whole hell of a lot of personal data about everyone. “It lives in many places, but three or four places in particular hold a massive amount of this data (ie MSN, Google, and Yahoo).”

In essence, the database consists of the sum total of everything any user has ever done on any of these web sites. These companies claim that personal information is completely dissociated from the data, but really that is just a point we have to trust them on. The potential for a company like Google to use this information for “evil” purposes is huge, and the public’s perception of just how safe their information is will determine how well potentially invasive services like GMail will succeed.

Google presents itself as just a bunch of good willed geeks that want to give the world great products and services for free. This is why they are currently “fighting vigorously,” subpoenas from the federal government for information on child pornography searches. Essentially they are fighting for our trust because, if they lose that they are pretty much fucked.

Google’s business model and the business model of most major Internet portals is predicated on users trusting that their personal information will be protected. If people didn’t have this trust they would stop using the services and ad revenue would plummet. Further, many new web services require an active role and a substantial investment of time and energy from their users e.g.(wikipedia, delicious, flickr, myspace, etc.). If users don’t trust the providers then these technologies have no chance of success.

Link to Joy of Tech comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy. (via reBlog: boing boing)

Google’s evil-meter has done well in the public eye. The perception has been that Google actually lived up to its “Do No Evil” motto. However, their recent choice to launch a Chinese version of the search engine with censored search results shows clearly that Google can be bought for a price. Google couldn’t sit by and watch billions of dollars in potential revenue evaporate along with their position as the world’s #1 search engine, this was their price.

They gave into Beijing and censored their search results, and by doing this they eviscerated their credibility with their user base, many of whom put time and energy into making Google what it is today. It doesn’t take much of a logical leap to see that if Google gives in to the Chinese government today, then it will probably give in to many other governments and powerful entities in the future. Your personal information is not safe with Google. They will sell out when the stakes are high, but it still remains to be seen how this fact plays out in the public consciousness. Will we lose the faith, or will we just shrug our shoulders and go on?

Roughly 20 protesters from Students for a Free Tibet — including a number of Tibetan nationals — gathered in front of Google’s headquarters last Wednesday to protest the company’s launch of a government-filter-compliant search engine in China. Link, more images here. (via: reBlog:boing boing: Telendro)

Yes, Google’s actions in regard to the Chinese government are evil, as are Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s actions. They represent the kind of pragmatism and moral relativism that has always personified the “evil corporation.” If Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL had formed a unified front maybe they could have pushed for more openness, but that’s not how business generally works. It’s about money and China has a lot of that to spread around.

In the end, “Do No Evil” is probably a bad slogan for a publicly traded company with such lofty aspirations for growth. Evil will have to be done. Sorry folks, that’s the unfortunate truth. The “Do No Evil” slogan just makes all the compromises and questionable dealings that much more painfully obvious.

Will all this evil come back to bite Google in the ass? I hope so! But, I’m too much of a realist to believe that they will pay fully for there sins. They are going to make boat loads of cash in China. I would have probably made the same decision, if I was CEO of Google. You don’t win by being nice or moral. You win by being evil, while convincing everyone you’re good.