AlterNet.org has an insightful piece on Google's axiom, "Don't Be Evil," and how the company's values have distinguished them from their competitors.
Side-by-side screenshots show how Google returns relevent results when searching for "hotels," while Yahoo's page is filled with paid advertising. See a Google example here, and Yahoo example here. "Google is still the best place to get the content you came for, not what marketers want you to see."
As the competition intensifies, can Google hold to their core beliefs? "Now that their name is synonymous with web search, their real challenge is staying true to their 'don't be evil' mantra in the face of greater scrutiny." Privacy advocates complain about the inclusion of ads in the new Gmail web email service, and Google has been criticized for preferring "Don't Be Evil" over "How can we be good?"
Says the AlterNet article, "It's my hope that Google sticks to its unabashedly idealistic guns throughout its IPO and beyond. Either way, they're already a success story for everyone who has ever wanted to make a buck without being evil."
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| Don't Be Evil - restoring the public trust in business, politics and the media |
Google's success due to Don't Be Evil culture - 5/13/2004 11:58:00 AM
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Letter to Wall Street Journal: Don't Be Evil - 5/12/2004 12:58:00 AM
In response to the May 3 article, Google's Idealistic IPO (sub req'd, see my summary below), I wrote the following letter to the editor:
--------------------------- Dear WSJ Real Time, Thank you for the wonderfully written article of May 3rd, "Google's Idealistic IPO Gives Sullied Net Era a Second Chance." Google's "Don't Be Evil" mantra is as inspiring as it is simple. Perhaps Google is "embarrassingly naive," but like you, I "giddily disagree"! I think Google's on to something here--and it's bigger and deeper than just being a good corporate citizen and funding nonprofits. As a journalist, you'll appreciate that Google is standing up against the corrupting influence money and power have over truth. Unlike many of its competitors, Google's search results are "unbiased and objective," "the best [they] know how to produce." Search results aren't influenced by advertising dollars or politics--they are as pure and accurate as Google can make them. It's so important to maintain the trust of their users that Google will forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in the short term by refusing to sell out or yield to pressure. Isn't it much the same in journalism? Maintaining editorial integrity costs money in the short term, but your brand and reputation benefit in the long term. I'm sure you could name a dozen media and news organizations that have compromised their reporting, while the Journal sticks to its principles and prospers. Perhaps I'm naive as well, but count me in as a believer in the "Don't Be Evil" philosophy. After seemingly endless exploitations of the public (Enron), and astonishing betrayals of trust (stock analyst research), I'm ready for a quiet revolution of enlightened self-interest. I hope the publicity Google generates in their IPO extravaganza will get people talking about conflicts of interest and corrupt practices in business, politics and the media. Google has changed the world--let's hear it for the guys in white hats! Don't be evil. |
Is Google really a force for good? - 5/12/2004 12:30:00 AM
The New York Times ripped Google's idealism and "Don't Be Evil" ethic as "embarrassingly naive."
But The Wall Street Journal is a believer. In Google's Idealistic IPO, Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry write that Google is defiant: It scoffed at the idea of quarterly earnings guidance, warned potential investors that it wasn't a conventional company and "we do not intend to become one" and swore that it plans to make high-risk, high-reward bets. The article continues that Google is "idealistic as well as defiant, proudly invoking its mantra of "Don't Be Evil." To the New York Times' cynicism the authors reply, "we giddily disagree." Unlike "all those dead dot-coms that swore to change the world, Google already has." Google has emphasized truth, objectivity, and a willingness to "Don't Be Evil" more than any big company in memory--and they appear live their words. This could be a much-needed revolution after years of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. The authors concede that "many revolutions end badly," and "Google will have a tough time staying its course and proving that continuing to do well and do good are possible for a large corporation." "But, based on its track record, we give Google's revolution a shot." |
LA Times Editor on Crisis in News Reporting - 5/10/2004 11:30:00 PM
L.A. Times editor John Carroll delivered a scathing critique of news media, which he says "has been infested by the rise of pseudo-journalists who go against journalism's long tradition to serve the public with accurate information."
All over the country there are offices that look like newsrooms and there are people in those offices that look for all the world just like journalists, but they are not practicing journalism," he said. "They regard the audience with a cold cynicism. They are practicing something I call a pseudo-journalism, and they view their audience as something to be manipulated. Carroll singled out Fox News and Bill O'Reilly far from fair and balanced, but as those who "misled their audience while claiming to inform them." Carroll spoke to a study that shows Americans had big misunderstandings about why the US invaded Iraq (WMD, links to al Qaeda, international support for the war). Carroll claimed that those who regularly watch Fox News are much more likely to be misinformed, according to the study. According to Carroll, the three most common misconceptions about the Iraq war are "That weapons of mass destruction had been found, a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been demonstrated, and that the world approved of U.S intervention in Iraq." Carroll said that "80 percent of people who primarily got their news from Fox believed at least one of the misconceptions. He said the figure was more than 57 percentage points higher than people who get their news from public news broadcasting." Carroll had a few words of advise for student journalists; he told them to pick their boss carefully. "Don't be lured by the money or the big name of the employer," he said, adding that journalists should not allow their integrity to be compromised by unscrupulous employers. "Don't be a piano player in a whorehouse," he said. (For counter arguments to Carroll's speech, see The Pseudo-Journalism of the L.A. Times.) |
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