[IP] more on google and "do no evil"

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Adam Fields <ip20398470293845@aquick.org>
Date: September 3, 2006 11:26:28 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Cc: ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [IP] google and "do no evil"

For IP, if you wish:

On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 07:53:04AM -0400, David Farber wrote:
[...]
> Notice carefully that the Google motto is "do no evil",
> not "marvel at our perfection".
>
> I, for one, would much rather have Google remain dedicated to
> the goal of "doing no evil" even if it occasionally
> falls short of the Olympian standard to which it is
> regularly held, than have the company succumb to the
> overt cynicism which asserts that if the company's record
> isn't perfect it's the same as not giving a whig
> in the first place so it should "disavow its motto"
> and stop caring about it.
>
> the mind boggles.

I have less of a problem with "do no evil", because it's semantically
null. Like all of the rest of their public face, it does sound goofy
and harmless, and tends to blind people to the fact that they are a
real for-profit company. But I think people are starting to wake up to
that.

What I have a real problem with is their mission statement:

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it
universally accessible and useful."

For one thing, this clearly doesn't apply to any information about
Google, or any information which Google has garnered in the course of
organizing all of the rest of the world's information (with lip
service paid to whether any given piece of information should be
"organized" at all).

We haven't asked if it's a good thing for all of the information in
the world to be made universally accessible and useful. Often, the
decision about whether it is is made by a party other than the one to
whom any relevant secrecy is important, without consulting that person
at all.

For example, if you use Google Analytics or AdSense on your web site,
Google can track my visits to your pages if I don't take steps to stop
them. Has that been reflected in anybody's privacy policy? Are those
web site owners even aware that that's the case?

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