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Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil” – can they live up to it?

On their site for investor relations (which they state is for public consumption) they say the phrase “Don’t be evil” is their informal motto. It states:
The core message is simple: Being Googlers means striving toward the highest possible standard of ethical business conduct.
However, it also says that as they evolve as a company, so too will their Code of Conduct. Listed on the page is a long list of how nice they want to be. Looks good!

They do their best to make working with them enjoyable. I like this – no, I’m not a cat person, so I think it’s great. Plenty of perks are available to their employees. Since the days of the DotCom going to DotGone, more companies have been removing the incentive to work for them – Google is one of the few that make people want to work there. Looks like they want their employees to be as happy as their users. OK, moving right along…

When Google started out as a company, they were a search engine. They provided a clean, uncluttered interface, relevant search results, and search results that weren’t influenced by advertising. Good! The ads were separated from the search results, which set them far above the other search engines. Honesty and integrity paid off – they got more eyes on them. Other search engines weren’t just for searching, they wanted to be your browser’s home page. Your main portal. The site you never left. Google just wanted to be your search engine. It was almost as if they wanted you to go away – hit them up for a search, get your answer quickly, and go away. Not too much on the ’stickyness’ that most sites try to use. Guess what, it worked. The easier they made it for you to go away, the more you came back.

This whole “no evil” thing was working for them. They didn’t seem to want to know anything about you, didn’t try to get your whole life story, bank info, email address, telephone number, or a list of your interests. Think about it – if you sign up for an account/username at the likes of Yahoo, MSN, or CNN, you’re going to have to divulge lots of info. Now, look at their privacy policies – they will tell you that the information you enter will be used for advertising. Yes, they’ll sell your soul for a little change in their pockets. Does google? Nope. You can get a gmail account, and about all you have to tell them is what address you want. Wow, sounds good, yes?

In the past few years, Google has released a number of “beta” services: email, shopping, news, mapping, localized searching, predictive searching, a portal (gasp!), video, desktop apps, blogging, groups, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on, the interfaces stay mostly clean, and surprisingly several almost appear to try to stay un-noticed.

So is there a downside? They never said they wouldn’t be mean, do immoral things, be irresponsible, be prying, or kick kittens, the just said they wouldn’t be evil. Have they grown, as a company, to a point where they can’t be trusted anymore? Just as Microsoft has long been touted as being evil, and Yahoo is starting to get that rap, yet Google always seemed to be the nice guy. Many people think that needs to change.

The people at Google-Watch have a scary list of the top 9 reasons why they (and 300 others) have listed Google as “Big Brother of the Year” for 2003. Check them out! A cookie that doesn’t expire until 2038? Unlimited data retention? Your gmail open for them to peruse? Yikes! To be fair, it can also be technically stated that the other free webmail providers, search engines, and almost any other website can also do this same thing. It does look worse with Google though… They do want to index and make searchable every piece of data available on the planet – although they say it will take a looooong time.  Maybe it just looks worse because they spell it out that they are doing it, the other companies just try to hide the terms in lawyer-speak.  They all do it.

I think that recently, Google is starting to act just like Microsoft. I don’t mean charging huge licensing fees, I mean trying to corner the market in several areas. They are already #1 for searching, but it’s not enough for them – they want more. Many big companies use a company buyout as a means of increasing their “value” by using the technology and/or patents owned by the small ones they gobble up. Some do it to remove competition in the market. Microsoft has a track record of buying out competitors, or forcing them out of business if they don’t sell. Google is starting to do the same at an alarming rate. Sometimes they take things too far and people will complain about it. Already, they’ve been accused of biopiracy, copyright infringement 1, 2 (judge said it’s OK though). Now, eBay is getting upset with them for their Base project – (this is after Google worked closely with them for years) and wants to ditch them. Looks like Base is trying to out-do the eBay and Craigslist market. How about Gmail? They wanted to bury the other free providers. Now they’re tying it in with their chat program. Need an word-processing application? How about Google teaming up with Sun? They are “working” on a project that would incorporate StarOffice (a MS Office replacement) into your browser. For years, there has been a rumor of a Google Operating System. Don’t forget about the Google Pack to install on your PC. Nice collection of must-have items, courtesy of the big G of course.

OK. Here’s how I see it coming… Microsoft is currently the most popular “love to hate” high-tech target. There are a few others on the sidelines, like SCO, Cisco, Dell, Intel, etc, but Google isn’t quite yet there. Meanwhile, they are waiting in the sidelines quietly building up their market, their knowledge base, their search repository, applications, and their clients. Their webpages are visually all cutsie and streamlined, the page coding is fast and efficient, and their persona is generally still lovable. Guess what – so are baby lions, tigers, and bears (oh my). Those cute little furballs can still hurt ya. Without you realizing it, they grow up quickly, and turn into a force to be reckoned with – big teeth, sharp claws, and amazing speed. That cute little furball that’s growing up is just waiting for the chance to be the king – a cute “meow” and “grrrr” now gets a grin, but check again in a few years – that furball is now a roaring mass of muscle, ready to eat your eyes out if you don’t get out of the way and do everything you’re told. I think Microsoft, while still strong, is going to be rolled over by the Google monster. Suddenly, MS might not seem quite so bad…

Just think about how much Google knows about you now. You’ve got your gmail account – all your mail is indexed and available for searching, as well as your address book. How many other Gmail accounts do you send to (nice conversation history to index)? Your Gmail chat program? Yup, that’s saved too. How about all your searches you typed in from the address bar or your google homepage? Image search, video search? Yup, saved. Look up any directions in their mapping app? How about the ‘local’ search? Buy stuff from Froogle (not Products)? How about selling anything on Base? You have an account on Blogger? Use their RSS reader? How about Picasa, Google Earth, Google desktop, or the Google browser toolbar? I’ll bet you don’t delete your cookies either, do ya? How about all those websites where you see AdSense ads? Oh, you have an AdSense account too? Don’t forget the Gmail Drive where you can back up data from your desktop and store it in gmail.

OK – put it together. Google has all of your email, all of your contact list, and all your chat conversations. Most likely, they have your other webmail account names also, as well as your work stuff since you send yourself an email from work to look into at home. With the right data-mining methods, they can probably figure out your relationship with these contact names as well. With their Google Desktop app storing your computer’s search info on their systems, they now have the contents of a lot of your personal documents (including the attachments in your Gmail), including the files GmailDrive put there. Since you were nice enough to start using their new Calendar app, they know your full schedule – you do have it sync’d with your PDA and Outlook at work, right? They know where you live since you’re always getting directions from Google Maps – gotta put in your home address… Even if you don’t put in your home address, they can still trace the neighborhood since you’re using their Local search functions. You buy stuff from Froogle, then sell it on Base. You blog your life away on Blogger when you’re not reading their news feed. Remember that cookie that lasts ’til 2038? All those AdSense ads you’re seeing all over the place can see it too. Ya know that TV show you were watching last night? You know, the one that gave you a question so you looked it up online. Plus, there was that cool commercial that you wanted to get more info about. Guess what – you looked them up too.

Verdict? They know where you live and where you work. They know when you get home from work and watch TV. They know where and when you’re traveling (to the hardware store or on vacation). They know what car you’re looking into buying as well as the house (and neighborhood) you’re moving in to next month. They know your hobbies and hates, as well as that “secret” identity you troll the forums with. They know what recipes you look up for dinner. Since you run searches on medical symptoms, they also know your physical condition and that of your family / room-mates, and that you have chronic heartburn – but last night’s “irritated stomach” was from the grease someone used in that recipe from last night. Possible STD? Yup, they know… That secret pr0n fetish of yours too! Yup, they saw you searching the for the pics and vids.
Their search results tell them what sites you were looking for. Their other cookies (from ads) tell them where you go when you aren’t on one of their sites. Their desktop search stores your data on their machines, so they’ve probably got your Temp internet files, history, and cookies. They’ve got your resume, PDF paystub, PDF W2, and your personal photo galleries (hope they are all clean). They know your online and offline schedule. They know almost everything about you.

Now you see all the info that they have on you. Naturally, since they won’t “Do Evil” they will not mine the data they have on you. Right? They won’t make an index or profile of “all about you” because that would “Be Bad.” Right? Now think over the past 5 years. Now read the above paragraph again, thinking in terms of “5 years” instead of “last week” like you just did.  One search or one email at a time, it doesn’t show anything really special about you, but a cumulative history over the past few years sure will!

So what do you think?
Kinda scary?  Not to pick on just Google, but how is this different than a Microsoft property (Live, Hotmail, MSN, etc) or Yahoo?

I think they are a bit too big for their britches now, and it’s definitely time to be scared…
There are always websites that say how wonderful Google is, but not many about them being bad. Maybe there should be more.

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Update: Nice list of people who are pissed at Google, and why: Business Week.