
Is Google evil? (2017) - pcr910303
https://unixsheikh.com/articles/is-google-evil.html
======
IfOnlyYouKnew
Google is surprisingly non-evil given it's size. Both the moral conviction of
its founders as well as the lack of pressure that comes with taking in gobs of
money probably contribute to it. Look no further than Facebook or Uber to see
the contrast.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee those favourable conditions persist. So
despite not being _evil_ , Google is _suspect_ just due to it's size.

And even though Google has been actively _good_ in many of the things it does
(Summer of Code, their work with non-profits, Alphabet's various moonshot
projects in the environmental or medical space), Apple has lately been giving
them a run for their money in being actively and creatively a force for good
in its core business, especially around privacy. It's not really something has
the right to demand from them, but it does seem like they should have the
potential to surprise us on occasion with technology aimed to solve the myriad
problems societies are experiencing with the rising role of the web. A high-
performant, hassle-free and verifiable alternative to TOR, say. Or a new
paradigm that mends the growing conflict between advertisers and users,
similarly to what Apple is doing with it's pseudonymous targeting scheme.

~~~
einpoklum
Moral conviction? No idea what you're talking about.

Lack of pressure? Whenever they get any orders from the government they
operate under (like US National Security Letters or Chinese, uh, whatever it
is the Chinese government issues) - they just comply with them.

"Apple a force for good"? Yeah, tell that to the Foxconn employees, I'm sure
they'll be thrilled. Or, again, to the people whose data is made available to
the NSA.

"mend the growing conflict between advertisers and users" \- much of
advertising is (mostly) hostile to the users, aiming to achieve results which
are detrimental to them. So there's not much mending to be done.

~~~
gundmc
Google only complies with ~60% of government requests and frequently pushes
back against suspect orders.

[https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-
data/overview?hl=...](https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-
data/overview?hl=en)

~~~
einpoklum
That's propaganda. I mean, it's probably true, in itself, but it's the 'small
potatoes'. Why? Because, regardless of individual information requests, they
funnel a copy of _everything_ to the NSA. All of it. Of course, regular
government agencies have to go through semi-civilized procedures of spying on
individuals, so they issue individual requests.

~~~
gundmc
That's a pretty bombastic claim. Do you have any sources to back it up?
Otherwise it's unadulterated conspiracy theory and FUD.

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supermatt
So declaring that you are doing evil things makes you not evil? What a bizarre
logic.

What is evil? The dictionary defines it as "profoundly immoral or wicked". It
also states that morals are "concerned with or derived from the code of
behaviour that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society".

So, as a society, do we consider it right or acceptable for a this private
information to be collected and utilised in this way? If we deem it
unacceptable (which I personally do, but I don't speak for society), then
google is evil - along with all those others doing the same thing.

~~~
ben509
The article argues the information collecting people agree to isn't evil.

It then goes on to describe a whole other set of activities and their
consequences, but doesn't characterize that one way or another. I don't need
the author to draw a conclusion here, but it's odd they don't.

~~~
la_barba
Well, then why complain about anything companies do? Its all buried in some
Terms of Service document that people agreed to anyway.

~~~
ben509
I think that's a fair point; fwiw I was just trying to clarify the article.

------
roenxi
There are two questions here:

1) Is Google more evil than a hypothetical benchmark company producing similar
products?

2) Is the product space Google works in fundamentally bad?

(1) is a pretty clear no, Google is about the best we could hope for given
that a single corporation is in the product spaces that they are in and trying
to sell ads. (2) is much less clear, there are many historical instances where
the existence of a Google would have magnified the damage done. Realistically
it isn't just them either, the radical dropping cost of surveillance was
raised the other day and Google's work is only a small component of that.

~~~
cartlidge
It isn't at all clear that (1) is true. Until recently, no-one was
particularly concerned about companies which link advertisers and purchasers.
Unless you say the hypothetical benchmark company is a company which tries to
track you and build a database on you and basically spy on you, Google seems
to be overtly more evil than any hypothetical benchmark company.

Effectively you've defined yourself into a corner were the hypothetical
benchmark company is Google, since they must be substantially identical in all
relevant ways. It isn't sufficient that they are advertising mediators: no,
they must be advertising mediators who track every detail of their users life.

But even if we decide to compare within their business methods - not just
their product space - and say, "given that they're Big Brother, are they an
evil Big Brother or relatively more benign", it's not clear that they're
benign. I have heard stories that leave my concerned (trying to produce a
censored version for China, for instance, and gagging former workers who don't
feel comfortable with that). I cannot provide evidence that they operate an
evil business in an evil way, but it isn't clear that they don't. The absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Google worries me more and more, even though I'm tied to them more and more.

------
sgjohnson
>The control and power of companies like Google and Microsoft is devastating
to governments around the world because they have the power and the right to
control whatever data they provide via their search engines.

Actually, it's the exact opposite. They are tools of control. Google and
Microsoft happily provides the governments of the world with whatever
information they want about their users.

------
jonplackett
It’s weird how we still attach ideas of morality to a corporation.

You could say google does evil but it can’t be evil in the normal sense of the
word. It’s not a person.

And you could say a Corporation is amoral. They just care about nothing except
profit. The CEO and board have no duty higher than that.

~~~
addicted
I’d like to point out that the idea that corporations “care about nothing
except profit” is a fairly radical and new idea that would have been
completely alien to anyone from more than a few decades ago.

It’s a testament to the success of the propaganda of the people who pushed
this idea that, whether a good idea or not, the majority of people today
consider it fundamental and will probably be surprised to learn how new it is.

~~~
SoylentOrange
I’m genuinely interested, can you provide a source for this?

My understanding of companies is they have always been exploitative. Any large
company from the gilded age is a good example (now almost a century ago).

Further back, the companies of the industrial revolution were legendary for
their amorality. Another example I’m familiar with is coal companies in
Scotland before WWI.

~~~
pmontra
This is an interesting article on the subject
[https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-
co...](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-
obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits) (2015)

This is another one [https://www.hrexchangenetwork.com/hr-talent-
management/colum...](https://www.hrexchangenetwork.com/hr-talent-
management/columns/the-purpose-of-business-is-not-to-make-a-profi) from 2011.

The points are

* Serving shareholders’ “best interests” is not the same thing as either maximizing profits, or maximizing shareholder value

* Profit, but not Profit Maximization

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einpoklum
"Evil" is not a useful category.

But Google is definitely maximizing the narrow interests of its share-holders
at the expense of users and (what I consider to be) fundamental social
interests, such as privacy, avoidance of undue psychological manipulation,
limitation of government power etc.

------
zzo38computer
Google is a large organization, and many large organization is both evil and
not-evil. (Also, such things as "evil" and "not-evil" is not always so clear,
anyways.)

But, often you can use services and software other than Google, anyways; or at
least, I can.

------
usr1106
The question is not whether Google is evil or not. They have a business model
that is mostly legal (there are probably some corners where they do not fully
comply with GDPR and national data protection and consumer protection laws in
Europe). So I wouldn't care how they run their business. If I don't like them
I don't do business with them. The problem is that they are a monopoly and
it's hard to avoid them. I know what I am talking about, because I use a
Google-free mobile phone (not Apple either). I cannot rent e-scooters (which
doesn't bother me) and I might have difficulties to buy/have to pay higher
prices for public transit tickets in many European cities (which sometimes
does bother me).

The big failure is lack of antitrust enforcement. Google needs to be broken up
like it happened to ATT in 1984.

------
major505
on a scale from zero to Facebook.... I would say its an 7.

But is a 7 with lots of power, and plenty of people with good intentions. And
the hell is full of people with good intentions.

------
kaolti
As long as it's either / or we're not gonna get anywhere with this
conversation.

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pferde
Yes. Next!

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shultays
I would argue putting ads that pops up next to your emails is evil

------
scottndecker
Author lists some potential solutions but fails to mention the Brave browser
(brave.com), which I think is pioneering much of what they're talking about.

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tictoc
Is being evil profitable?

------
RootKitBeerCat
So google’s not evil because they disclose that they’re a wolf??

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tunap
The recent(?) screwing down of results page that do not allow jumping to the
n-th page or do not disclose any results past the 2 or 3 pages of paid results
impels me to believe Betteridge's Law has been broken.

------
DoctorNick
No, they simply function in an amoral capitalist system which demands the
maximum amount of profit.

~~~
sgjohnson
There's nothing wrong with the system. You're free to use any of the
alternatives. You think you would have that freedom in a non-capitalist
system?

~~~
einpoklum
> You think you would have that freedom in a non-capitalist system?

Obviously depending on which system, but - yes. Even kind of rotten systems
like the state-capitalism of East Germany had different "freedom trade-offs".
A local once described it this way: "Under the DDR you had an apartment, but
you couldn't speak out on things. Now you can say whatever you like and nobody
will care, but you can't afford an apartment."

------
tromp
This article predates the removal of "Don't be evil" from Google's Code of
Conduct by about half a year.

[https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-
do...](https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-
from-1826153393)

~~~
mda
It was not removed, still part of Code of Conduct.

~~~
llampx
So it applies to employees but not to the company itself?

~~~
mda
Employees == Company

