[roenxi]

People who think carefully then call Google 'evil' may as well be the same people who used to call it 'good'. Corporations aren't good or evil. They are powerful.

Being good is many things, but a key part of that is restraining the self from acting improperly. Corporations can't do that, they will sooner or later do whatever makes money. Or they get replaced sooner or later by a corporation that will. At best, there are stylistic differences around the edges that are simultaneously important but minor in the grand scheme of things. Sooner or later a corporation will be thinking primarily in terms of 'profitable' and 'not profitable'.

Calling Google 'evil' is trying to articulate something else - Google are powerful and dangerous. Any entity harvesting and directing the flow of information at that scale is. They have an unprecedented capability to cause harm; and sooner or later it will get used by someone to do exactly that.

[riffraff]

But Google ten years ago seemed good, full stop. All of their behaviour seemed to be a net positive for the rest of the world, even when done in self interest.

Now, it's easy to see some behaviour which are not.

Even assuming there is a slide toward evil for corporations, and I'm not sure there is, it still seems correct to say that a company is at a given state of "goodness" in a certain time.

[Kye]

How about insidious? It's the banal sort of evil that doesn't realize the harm it's causing, or doesn't see a way to survive without causing that harm.

[marc_io]

Well, maybe, but that's the human condition also. All of our actions — even the most well intentioned ones — can have unexpected and even disastrous consequences.

[buboard]

> Corporations aren't good or evil. They are powerful

That meant to imply that google is neutral? The strong nuclear force is powerful that doesn’t mean anything on its own. It can be harvested for good electricity or bad bombs. Of course the consensus on this is almost universal, the consensus on google is much more ambivalent. Corporations may well be good or evil

[marc_io]

Yes, Google is not neutral, it definitely have a clear, intentional agenda. But it's non-moral (not imoral, or evil) as are all corporations. It just uses it's power as a way to complete it's objectives. This is way different from being neutral.

[BlueTemplar]

In a republic, the government - representing the people - is supposed to have the biggest stick. Huge companies with their own agendas are throwing a spanner in the works. And they basically only care about money. So the bigger they are, the more inherently evil they are. And it becomes even worse with transnational companies whose headquarters are basically out of reach.

[zepto]

Objectives can be evil

[marc_io]

Certainly, what I mean is that it's actions can be also be seen as good under certain moral code.

[buboard]

when ppl say google is evil they mean its leadership

[partyboat1586]

The thing about Google is they have a monopoly on search. The risk for them doing good at the expense of additional profit is much lower than almost any other business. They won't be easily replaced. They could choose to be good but they don't.