[mapgrep]

Good to know that the company that holds my email, appointments, two-factor-auth, credit card number, and search data has the reliability of a flaky college freshman.

Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations (when they're not insisting that no corporation would ever be so stupid as to break a highly visible promise because the outcry would be tremendous).

[brymaster]

Reading this is a breath of fresh air from the traditional "defend Google or other corporations at all costs" type comments. Maybe now we can drop the meme that Google is some altruistic entity and realize that ~97% of their revenue is from advertising. This is why they exist.

It's now just a matter of time before paid inclusion results show up in the organic SERPs like Yahoo used to have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_inclusion

Edit: Whoops they already broke that promise too!

http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace...

The best part is in Google's original IPO filing they promised not to ever accept money for inclusion of results:

> "Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating."

> "We do not accept money for search result ranking or inclusion. We do accept fees for advertising, but it does not influence how we generate our search results. The advertising is clearly marked and separated. This is similar to a newspaper, where the articles are independent of the advertising."

> "Some of our competitors charge web sites for inclusion in their indices or for more frequent updating of pages. Inclusion and frequent updating in our index are open to all sites free of charge."

> "We apply these principles to each of our products and services. We believe it is important for users to have access to the best available information and research, not just the information that someone pays for them to see."

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001193125041...

Times sure have changed!

[jeffclark]

> Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations

At some point, people realize that corporations exist to maximize profit and not necessarily for the good of the customer.

[enraged_camel]

Then why are they making promises for the good of the customer?

There are plenty of corporations who don't make such promises.

[velik_m]

To maximize the profits?

[snowwrestler]

I think the Guardian knows what a corporation is. That does not imply that they can't complain about corporate decisions.

[wdr1]

> At some point, people realize that corporations exist to maximize profit and not necessarily for the good of the customer.

Trite, but disputed by many (most?) leading authorities, including Peter Drucker.

http://www.humanresourcesiq.com/drucker-on-management/column...

[pbhjpbhj]

>that corporations exist to maximize //

Some, probably most, not all.

[derscheister]

Exactly which company doesn't exist to maximize profit?

[taway2012]

There is such a thing as a B-corporation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation

"A benefit corporation or B corporation is a corporate form in the United States designed for for-profit entities that want to consider society and the environment in addition to profit in their decision making process."

E.g., Patagonia is a B-corp.

[jerf]

"Maximize profit" is not a well-defined single thing. For instance, the suggestion that companies maximize profits without regard for their customers must explain why the customers actually stay with that company; in general that may be a short-term win but a huge long-term loss, and many companies have died that way. If nothing else you've got to consider long-term profit vs. short-term profit, and there are in fact many other "something elses" to consider (what level of risks to take, etc).

[Surio]

Maybe this is rhetorical, but there are a few that don't place "profit first". One such is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

[axus]

A "non"-profit? Different definition of profit, it's trying to maximize something else

[pbhjpbhj]

Well the company I work for as one and any other company that realises the pursuit of money without regard for other ideals is an exercise in destruction and exploitation.

Often co-operatives will fit well in to this category as the workers in a co-operative are rather less likely to malevolently exploit themselves in a disdainful pursuit of profit before humanity.

[sanxiyn]

http://hackingbusinessmodel.info/

[jggonz]

Silence fills the room...

[reddit_clone]

Those two don't have to be mutually exclusive you know..

Killing the goose is never maximizing profit.

[jol]

Agree about freshman, just wanted to add, that this freshman has managed to do other not so nice things recently, thus increasing cumulative damage to the reputation well beyond sum of each part. I assume that at some point powerusers will start to migrate to different services, when/if competitive enough offer comes

[Aldo_MX]

> Hitler promised not to invade Czechoslovakia, Jeremy. Welcome to the real world!

[eCa]

I would hope that Google considers itself, at least a little bit, more moral than one of the top ten most evil persons of history.

[xiaohanzhang14]

It didn't take very long to reinforce Godwin's Law on this thread...

[djt]

Here's the reference for those that haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOeiEKemWeA

[moogleii]

A promise made by Marissa Mayer, who, as most of us know, works elsewhere now. Sure, the promise was arguably on behalf of the company, but "under her watch" is also arguably implied.

[d23]

As it turns out, corporations are made up of people and, like people, have the tendency to change.

[lightbritefight]

No reason to abstract it. Corporations are people, obviously. We are just seeing Google get over that idealist phase so many of us have in our youth.

This is just Google, all grown up.