Our good friend Wikipedia defines evil as ‘something that is immoral, causes pain or harm, is offensive, or threatening’ (Wikipedia, 2010).

Is Google immoral? Probably.

Does it cause pain or harm? Not directly but in a stalker-Googling-you-and-possibly-stabbing-you kind of way, yeah, maybe.

Is it offensive? If you search hard enough.

Threatening? Yep. Threatening to our privacy and threatening to its competition.

Does this answer your question? No? Damn!

So Google changed the way we acquire information.  Their desperation for data collection has lead to a threat to our privacy and suddenly our server is a huge informational hub at the easy access of stalkers, hackers, online thieves, and possibly our government. But is Google evil or the people who have access to it?  Google doesn’t always do the right thing and it will probably continue that way but will it come alive and kill us all? No.

From the start, Google’s casual motto has been “Don’t Be Evil,” but Google’s entire value proposition is to figure out what people want and this comes at a price, our privacy. Google works hard to protect its “not evil” image but like any company, ‘Faced with doing the right thing or doing what is in its best interests, Google has almost always chosen expediency’(Penenberg, A L 2007). Again, Does this make them evil?

Google is frequently dubbed as ‘evil’ by struggling publishers who are now realizing offering free online content probably wasn’t the best idea. So now ‘Google–the ultimate source of free content’ is suddenly fired upon as the problem (McCarthy, C, 2009). Google insists it is not part of the problem but rather part of the solution (Macgillivray , A, 2009). Google insists they work hard to help publishers earn revenue. ‘Our AdSense program pays out millions of dollars to newspapers that place ads on their sites, and our goal is that our interest-based advertising technology will help newspapers make more from each click we send them by serving better, more relevant ads to their readers to generate higher returns.’ (Macgillivray , A, 2009)

So Google probably isn’t evil. They may not be a colossal angel sending love rays around the globe and they may choose money over their conscience at times, but they are not evil. The real problem is they hold too much power and no one should hold that much power except you and me right? Yes Google is very powerful and therefore we should have one eye on them at all times and scrutinize their every move, but evil? Really? Talk to me when they start making man-eating spiders.

References-

Wikipedia, 2010, Evil, 10/03/2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

Penenberg, A L 2007, Is Google Evil, 09/03/2010, http://motherjones.com/politics/2006/10/google-evil

McCarthy, C, 2009, Google To Publishers: We’re Not Evil, 10/03/2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/07/tech/cnettechnews/main4926528.shtml

Macgillivray , A, 2009, Some questions related to Google News and the Associated Press, 10/03/2009, http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-questions-related-to-google-news.html