Google violates it's 'Don't Be Evil' motto

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Google violates it's 'Don't Be Evil' motto

18 Nov 2008

Summary

Speakers for the motion:

Randal C. Picker says that, by taking on this motto, Google has set itself impossibly high standards - ones which, as a business, it cannot expect to live up to.

Henry Lewis sees Google's strategy in China as a clear sign of the company placing money over morals, and laments its failure to have stood up to the Chinese government.

Siva Vaidhyanathan illustrates how Google is guilty of all seven deadly sins, from pride to envy, and even sloth - the company, after all, relies on its users to generate content, and thereby to make it money.

Speakers against the motion:

Jim Harper suggests that accusations levelled at Google are misdirected, and should really be aimed at the Internet itself. there are plenty of other search engines out there and many other companies seeking to make money from the web - is our problem really with Google, or we just singling it out so we have something to focus our disdain on?

Internet entrepreneur and former Google investor Esther Dyson says that the company will help change minds in China by making citizens question the lack of information about their own government. It may not give them all the answers, but at least Google ensures that some of the right questions are asked.

Jeff Jarvis follows a similar line of argument, saying that Google's potential is to be lauded: it is trying to make the world a better place - by bringing cultures together, by giving itself such a hubristic motto, and by the Google.org foundation.

First vote: 21% For, 31% Against, 48% Don't Know

Final vote: 47% For, 47% Against, 6% Don't Know

Speakers for the motion

Harry Lewis

Former Dean of Harvard College and Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard
Randal C Picker

Academic, author, and expert on copyright and antitrust regulation
Siva Vaidhyanathan

Cultural historian, media scholar, and associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia

Chair

John Donvan

Correspondent for ABC News

Speakers against the motion

Esther Dyson

Author, investor, and Director of Yandex, Russia's most popular search engine
Jim Harper

Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute
Jeff Jarvis

Author, blogger, academic, and former journalist