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I am reminded time and time again how much "Don't be evil" mantra still holds for Google whenever other evil corporations do things like suing companies for loo

I am reminded time and time again how much "Don't be evil" mantra still holds for Google whenever other evil corporations do things like suing companies for looks of a product, primarily to hamper competition, and when they take cut out of sale made on their platform without adding any value whatsoever to the payment platform. When was the last time Google abused its set of patents to screw competition? There are so many ways in which Google can be evil, but it consciously chooses not to be. Edit: Grammar

crenshaw 15y ago
Patents are just one way to be evil. Another way to be evil might be to let Canadian companies advertise illegally to sell prescription drugs in the US. From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/google-settles-pharmacy-ad-probe_n_935183.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/google-settles-phar... "Investigators snared Google's ad system by creating seven undercover websites offering prescription drugs to be sold without a prescription or the completion of an online medical questionnaire, Martin-Weis said. An undercover investigator informed Google employees creating the advertising for the products that they were manufactured overseas and did not require customers to have a valid prescription, she said. "In each instance, despite this knowledge, Google employees created a full advertising campaign for each of the undercover websites," Martin-Weis said."
- sharmajai 15y ago
  Google is not law enforcement and thank god for that. Unlike apple which strives to be the moral leader of the world that nobody needs. What google did here was illegal and it paid the price for it, but I don't see anybody getting directly harmed by google's decision, it was not google selling the drugs themselves or that the drugs were not upto the standards. Besides by the same reasoning google should block all the illegal torrent sites, or wikileaks for that matter. Always remember your truth is not everybody else's truth, and it is better that the world's leading search engine does not take sides for you.
  - crenshaw 15y ago
    So let me get this straight. Protecting your IP with legal patents is evil. Willfully and knowingly getting paid to advertise illegally distributed prescription drugs is fine and dandy. Clearly Google can do no evil, because everything they do is good in your eyes. Next thing you'll tell me that collecting advertising for child porn, hitmen, or crack is fine too. They don't make moral judgments. Except in China when they're having problems -- then they're suddenly all about morality. I love all the jerk-wad Google apologists downvoting this. Few companies I can stand less than this self-righteous company and its blind followers.
    - richardw 15y ago
      What you might be seeing is the response of intelligent people who make up their own minds, and who consider Google overall to be much less evil than, oh, I dunno, MicrosoftOracleAppleFacebooketc? At least they have a bold statement that people like us, the media and their own employees will measure them up against, every hour of every day. Whether they always unfailingly measure up to it isn't as important as having it there. Especially for a profit-driven company that has unending opportunities to get just a bit more evil.
    - danssig 15y ago
      Even worse is the Orwellian Google love that's shitting all over this thread. Bill Gates started a charity because charities suck so bad and he wanted his billions to accomplish something. Steve Jobs doesn't even take money for his work (he gets stock options that he often doesn't even bother to extercise), hell, even Larry Ellison signed a thing to donate most of his fortune to charity when he dies. But, no, it's Google who are the benevolent ones! Why? Well because their motto says so, duh?
      - sharmajai 15y ago
        Then maybe Steve Jobs should use his salary to make his products affordable to third world countries to do some real good than serving the riches of the world, and maybe Larry Ellison should have honored Sun Microsystem's policies of not suing anybody who uses Java APIs.
blub 15y ago
Stupid lawsuits about product looks are almost irrelevant to the society and individual. A centralized database of individual's profiles is a much more dangerous tool. Google's efforts to destroy the idea of online privacy are much more dangerous to society.
- sharmajai 15y ago
  I think, google is the one protecting the idea of online privacy by not having stupid restrictions on exporting your own social data and by allowing the users to decide what gets shared with whom (circles). And stupid lawsuits are not irrelevant to the society, they hamper competition which in turn hampers technological progress. If you think Samsung Galaxy Tab and Ipad look similar, just look again at their screens side by side the difference between PLS and IPS is day and night, it is unfortunate that the court does not deem that as differentiating enough.

crenshaw 15y ago

Patents are just one way to be evil. Another way to be evil might be to let Canadian companies advertise illegally to sell prescription drugs in the US. From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/google-settles-pharmacy-ad-probe_n_935183.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/google-settles-phar... "Investigators snared Google's ad system by creating seven undercover websites offering prescription drugs to be sold without a prescription or the completion of an online medical questionnaire, Martin-Weis said. An undercover investigator informed Google employees creating the advertising for the products that they were manufactured overseas and did not require customers to have a valid prescription, she said. "In each instance, despite this knowledge, Google employees created a full advertising campaign for each of the undercover websites," Martin-Weis said."

sharmajai 15y ago
Google is not law enforcement and thank god for that. Unlike apple which strives to be the moral leader of the world that nobody needs. What google did here was illegal and it paid the price for it, but I don't see anybody getting directly harmed by google's decision, it was not google selling the drugs themselves or that the drugs were not upto the standards. Besides by the same reasoning google should block all the illegal torrent sites, or wikileaks for that matter. Always remember your truth is not everybody else's truth, and it is better that the world's leading search engine does not take sides for you.
- crenshaw 15y ago
  So let me get this straight. Protecting your IP with legal patents is evil. Willfully and knowingly getting paid to advertise illegally distributed prescription drugs is fine and dandy. Clearly Google can do no evil, because everything they do is good in your eyes. Next thing you'll tell me that collecting advertising for child porn, hitmen, or crack is fine too. They don't make moral judgments. Except in China when they're having problems -- then they're suddenly all about morality. I love all the jerk-wad Google apologists downvoting this. Few companies I can stand less than this self-righteous company and its blind followers.
  - richardw 15y ago
    What you might be seeing is the response of intelligent people who make up their own minds, and who consider Google overall to be much less evil than, oh, I dunno, MicrosoftOracleAppleFacebooketc? At least they have a bold statement that people like us, the media and their own employees will measure them up against, every hour of every day. Whether they always unfailingly measure up to it isn't as important as having it there. Especially for a profit-driven company that has unending opportunities to get just a bit more evil.
  - danssig 15y ago
    Even worse is the Orwellian Google love that's shitting all over this thread. Bill Gates started a charity because charities suck so bad and he wanted his billions to accomplish something. Steve Jobs doesn't even take money for his work (he gets stock options that he often doesn't even bother to extercise), hell, even Larry Ellison signed a thing to donate most of his fortune to charity when he dies. But, no, it's Google who are the benevolent ones! Why? Well because their motto says so, duh?
    - sharmajai 15y ago
      Then maybe Steve Jobs should use his salary to make his products affordable to third world countries to do some real good than serving the riches of the world, and maybe Larry Ellison should have honored Sun Microsystem's policies of not suing anybody who uses Java APIs.

blub 15y ago

Stupid lawsuits about product looks are almost irrelevant to the society and individual. A centralized database of individual's profiles is a much more dangerous tool. Google's efforts to destroy the idea of online privacy are much more dangerous to society.

sharmajai 15y ago
I think, google is the one protecting the idea of online privacy by not having stupid restrictions on exporting your own social data and by allowing the users to decide what gets shared with whom (circles). And stupid lawsuits are not irrelevant to the society, they hamper competition which in turn hampers technological progress. If you think Samsung Galaxy Tab and Ipad look similar, just look again at their screens side by side the difference between PLS and IPS is day and night, it is unfortunate that the court does not deem that as differentiating enough.