Google, do no evil? Maybe.

Yesterday I wrote about the eight separate $1 charges that google charged my credit card by mistake. I believe it will all work out just fine, mistakes happen to all of us. And I must admit that google was easy to reach on the phone, their people were polite and knowledgeable, and I think that eventually I will not be charged anything and their free $75 AdWords coupon will actually be free.

But this incident, especially the nice and professional treatment google gave me, got me thinking about google's corporate motto that is supposed to be something like "Do no evil." I wasn't sure exactly what it was, so I decided to read about it. I searched on google's corporate site for "Do no evil". Hmmm... not there. Went to wikipedia... Yes!

According to Wikipedia:

"Don't be evil" is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google,^[1] originally suggested by Google employees Paul Buchheit^[2] and Amit Patel^[3] at a meeting. 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." While the official corporate philosophy of Google^[4] does not contain the words "Don't be evil", they were included in the prospectus (aka "S-1") of Google's 2004 IPO (a letter from Google's founders, latter called the "'Don't Be Evil' manifesto"): "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."^[5] The sixth point of the 10-point corporate philosophy of Google says "You can make money without doing evil."^[4]

That is very nice, but why is it no longer in any of Google's official documents? Why was it taken out? Some things just cannot be undone. Most (all?) corporations I know do not have a "Don't be evil" statement, and that is perfectly OK. Corporations do not have to be nice, just legal and ethical and perhaps fair. Asking a corporation to do no evil is a bit much in my book. After all, a corporation is more of a building than a human. And doing no evil is a human quality. 


So why was it taken out? Did Google decide that they are OK with being evil? This is where not having ever said "Don't be evil" is a world away from having stated it and then taking it away. Once you take the high road and put yourself on a pedestal, you are committing to higher standards. Stepping down is a failure, at least in my book. Sorry Google, I hope I am wrong, I still like you, just not as much as before.