A debate on the premise that "Google violates its 'don't be evil' motto."

That depends, of course, on what you think the motto means.

To mean anything, it has to promise more than, say, not being Enron. That's far too low a bar to set for such a lofty slogan.

And it doesn't mean being evil in the way that some people might view tobacco companies as evil, or as Sauron and Voldemort are evil.

I think Nick Carr hit it on the head: "When Google adopted 'don't be evil' as the cornerstone of its corporate code of conduct, what it really meant was 'don't be Microsoft.'"

That does not mean, as one outraged dullard says in the comments beneath Jeff Jarvis' post on the subject, that Microsoft is being called truly evil. It means that Google was defining itself against the most powerful company in the software industry at that time -- Microsoft -- a company that was feared but not loved.

By that standard, it's grown harder over time to argue that Google is not just another big company in many ways. A useful and valuable and in many ways admirable one, but maybe not so special after all.

An example discussed here from my own backyard in North Carolina, where Google tried to strong-arm public officials to keep a tax-funded-deal secret. Elsewhere, they're playing ball with the repressive Chinese government to profit in that market; they have raised some questions about monopolistic practices with proposed deals and sheer market share; their secretive search formula -- a competitive necessity -- can seem arbitrary and unfair; etc..

If one accepts not being evil as defined by not acting like a typical big corporation, then I'm not sure Google's stated aspiration was possible once it went public.

Management has a legal responsibility to act in the shareholders' interest, within certain parameters; that is, to make the most money possible. This is big business, not Sunday school (and in the latter place we are told that a love of money is the root of all evil). By the standards of the game they're playing, not being evil may not be an option. Google was going to be different from the huge, public software companies that came before it, but in many ways it isn't so different, and in some ways it cannot be.

Next question: Does Coca-Cola really want to teach the world to sing?