[5l]

I find it interesting that a motto so straight forward a child could understand now requires knowledge of the context and history in which it was coined in order to interpret it correctly.

From the Wikipedia article[0]:

Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out," adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent."

a letter from Google's founders:

"Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains."

The intent seems quite straight forward to me, but if we're actually at the stage where we're debating the meaning of "Don't be evil", then perhaps it's already too late.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil

[joebadmo]

Unfortunately, things like privacy policies and appropriate use of personal information aren't as straightforward, even for children. "Theoretically, there's no difference between theory and practice," right?

Also, if you think the concept of evil is easy or straightforward, well, let's just say I'm a proponent of a broad liberal arts education.

[5l]

Nobody coerced them into any of this. The founders of Google can steer their company in all sorts of directions.

If they choose to take their company to a place where they can no longer easily discern 'evil' from 'not evil', then I think it's fair to say that they're not adhering to the spirit of their motto.

To be honest, my main concern is that they seem to be driven primarily by commercial considerations in dealing with Facebook, rather than serving their users best interests. That, more than the specifics of what they're doing, is what really worries me.

[joebadmo]

I'm not sure where coercion comes into it. I guess my point is that evil isn't always easily discernible, and this is probably most true wrt the most important subjects.

They said "Don't be evil," whereas you're interpreting that as "Don't ever come close to doing anything that anyone could ever interpret as evil," which I think is unfair and would be prohibitively restrictive.

It's a commercial company, so there will always be commercial considerations. And I do understand the general unease around Google. But I also totally get why Google would want to add social signals: to improve search. And if FB won't open up, what alternative does Google have?

[5l]

> I'm not sure where coercion comes into it.

Sometimes you find yourself in a moral quandary through no fault of your own.

But if you're going to say, "I wont do evil" (whatever it is that you actually mean by "evil"), it would be wise not to put yourself in a position where you're either forced to do evil, or worse, can't tell if what you're doing is evil or not.

> evil isn't always easily discernible

So you're right; it isn't always discernible, but that's no excuse for making life even more difficult for yourself.

> They said "Don't be evil," whereas you're interpreting that as [...]

Not at all. They explained what they meant by it; I think it's perfectly reasonable and understandable so that's what I will hold them to. Indeed, I think it's clear that's exactly what they wanted us to do.

> I also totally get why Google would want to add social signals: to improve search.

Yes, I understand it too, and as I said elsewhere, I do find it rather convenient. I wont pretend it doesn't improve search, because it does.

That said, I don't want Google locked in a race to the bottom with Facebook to mine our personal data. I don't think it would serve any of us very well in the long term even if it would improve our search results and Google's profits.

> what alternative does Google have?

Find other ways to improve search.

[joebadmo]

> ...it would be wise not to put yourself in a position where you're either forced to do evil, or worse, can't tell if what you're doing is evil or not.

I think you're conflating two perspectives. While we as bystanders can parse and decide whether what Google is doing is evil, this has no bearing on what Google itself considers evil. If evilness is not readily discernable, then there will be deviations between the two. But this doesn't mean that Google itself is putting itself in a position to do evil. Why do you think Google considers its actions evil? If you have some evidence about Google willfully violating "Don't be evil," I'd be interested in seeing it.

> So you're right; it isn't always discernible, but that's no excuse for making life even more difficult for yourself.

Making life difficult for yourself requires no excuse. If Google makes it hard for itself not to do evil, but continues to not do evil, then there's obviously no problem. If Google makes it hard, then does do evil, then it's still the evil deed that's the problem, not having put itself in the situation. So I find this whole "putting yourself in a hard situation" line to be irrelevant.

> That said, I don't want Google locked in a race to the bottom with Facebook to mine our personal data. I don't think it would serve any of us very well in the long term even if it would improve our search results and Google's profits.

I didn't realize that mining personal data counted as evil. If that's the case, they crossed the line long ago, didn't they?

[5l]

> Why do you think Google considers its actions evil?

I don't want to sound prickly but you keep putting words in my mouth.

As I said, it's less about the specifics of what they're doing now, and more about the apparent switch of focus from "organising the world's information" [0] to "deliver[ing] online experiences tailored to each individual's interests and social circles" [1] which, I believe, may lead to a bad outcome. And it's obvious many people within the company are uneasy about this too (and do, arguably, think it's wrong) [2]

Does this mean "Google" thinks itself to be evil? Well it becomes meaningless to talk about Google as a monolithic entity at that point because it's made up of individuals.

I'm concerned because going forward I think it's going to be much harder for Google to balance the best interests of their users with their mission and profit motive. When Google launched, our interests were more or less perfectly aligned with theirs. This switch in focus is one of the biggest upsets to that yet.

> Making life difficult for yourself requires no excuse.

If I gave you my word, and then through a series of decisions proceeded to make it almost impossible to keep it, perhaps you would say nothing all the while. At the very least, I think you would have an opinion on it.

But here we have an institution. People build institutions. We can build it in such a way that's it's likely to fail, or build it in such a way that it wont. Surely you can see it's important to make it as easy as possible for Google to do the right thing and difficult, if not impossible, for them do the wrong things.

If we don't, I think history is pretty clear on this one. Sooner or later, a bad outcome is absolutely inevitable.

> I didn't realize that mining personal data counted as evil.

I said a race to the bottom in mining personal data. Is what they're doing now evil? The consensus seems to be, no. Is there a point where we could all agree they've gone too far? Absolutely; obviously, even. So naturally you're going to ask me where the line should be drawn. Well, I honestly don't know and unfortunately I think we'll only know after it has been crossed, by which time it may be far too late to take meaningful action.

Google doesn't need to go down this route. If they choose to they're going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to hold onto their values.

Me, I think there are plenty of other things they could be getting on with. They haven't finished organising the worlds information yet. Maybe when they've done that, we can talk again about them "deeply understanding" who I am [1].

[0] http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/google-ceo-larry-pa...

[2] http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-y...