Google is very much in the news these days. [come on you dont need a link for google]. first with the ever rising share prices, then with the stand off against the US Govt, and the consecutive fall in prices and now with the censorship of search results in China.
The reason for writing is to mull over Google's inherent 'do good' or 'do no evil' policy. Very few companies ever have such a policy, and while laudable, its the implementation of the same that needs to be seen. Also the fact that you cannot really follow suit and keep financial gain in some cases. Google definitely tried its best .. it fought and still continues to fight a cold war of sorts against censorship in certain countries on their search results .. saying all data should be open to public. There have certainly been incidences where after consultation with respective governments Google has had to exclude some specified sites from search results. But all the while they were advocating open searches. And now comes this stand off with the US Govt. The govt asked Yahoo!, AOL and Google to submit a list of search terms used by their users last year .. in an effort to determine if, and if yes, then how children may be stumbling across porn on the internet. However Google was the lone company which refused to oblige.
Later on in the month, they decided to oblige with the Chinese govt and agreed to censor certain websites when searched from china .. like specific search terms and topics.
Agreed, that the US govt issue does raise questions regarding privacy and all that (continue to guard some privacy which you think still exists, that is) but arent the two decisions by google self conflicting at some level?
Recently, Google's stock fell by 19% in one day. What say? :-)
Posted by: ambimama at February 3, 2006 07:57 AMI wrote this before Google had its earnings call. But what I am talking about here is policy, not earnings.
Posted by: anya at February 3, 2006 01:30 PMThat was just an FYI.
But do you really think google is fighting US govt cos it does not want to give the information? I disagree.
Google knows that US Fed dept is asking only for the search string and not the IP address or any other user information. So it is certainly not a privacy issue. But like many people in the business world imagine, google is fighting the US govt for two reasons:
1) This will help GOOG gain public confidence that they consider people's private data seriously
2) It also brings out the fact that MSN, Yahoo! and AOL have complied with the govt in disclosing the data and now if GOOG refuses to do so then it is going to be the HERO here and all others will be looked at as villans.
well .. if you do decide to deny data to the US Govt .. which is asking for search terms .. to study how children may be stumbling across cunningly worded porn sites .. and then agree to filter democracy related and human rights results to suit Chinese Govt concerns .. then I fail to see how you can become a hero.
FYI.
MSN and Yahoo! have already complied with Chineese Govt for such censorship of web site content. MSN recently banned/deleted several of its MSN-Spaces accouts upon request by Chineese govt. This is not a new phenomenon.
Also, there is a time when you(as a company) has to make a choice between "principles" and "money".. and this time google choose the latter the same way MSN and other choose it sometime back for other reasons.
Posted by: ambimama at February 3, 2006 10:32 PMexactly my points --
1. profit vs 'do no evil'
2. yahoo and google complied with govts on both counts .. whereas google chose to battle the us govt instead of the chinese one - and thus the conflict.
Posted by: anya at February 3, 2006 11:00 PM... and the reason google is fighting the US govt I think for P-U-B-L-I-C-T-Y
I wonder what will happen if their plans backfire and they loose the lawsuit and are forced to disclose the information.. ha haa, man i swear, that day i will stop using google and start trying Microsoft's Live search(which will soon come out of beta)
Check this out,
http://blog.outer-court.com/patriot
--- A site is worth a thousand words ---
ps: Are we not talking about the same set of points again for several days now? :-)
kay zhala re, google la!
Posted by: nupur at February 5, 2006 08:33 AMzala kahi nahi faar. kalji nako karus ;-)
ani tuza kay challay .. blog banda kelas aasa vatla mala.
Hi…I’m Roy, just start the journey in the blog-world. New..... so learning the tricks by peeping in others blog without any prior permission (sorry for that!!). Heii, why not take a look to my blog: (http://comeonroy.blogspot.com/) & tell me where I need to improve. Most important, maybe you can also get something new & interesting stuff…..maybe!!
Hoping to hear you..
Roy
Completely off topic but that final comment had me on the floor laughing... in office :).... I mean just read the dude's blog address... you'd think people wud choose blog addresses more wisely....
Posted by: Prashant at February 7, 2006 02:49 AMprashant .. dude .. i used to say this before .. and i say it now .. can't you think of ANYTHING else? :-D
saale .. and dude .. this is even more offtopic .. but i was just remembering pizza luce and green mill the other day .. remember those late night tiramisus at luce's?
Posted by: anya at February 7, 2006 03:00 PM