Is Google turning towards the dark side?
February 14th, 2006 by Nelson Pavlosky
Along with recent concerns over Google Desktop, Google’s acquiescence to censorship in China has many people questioning whether Google is staying true to its unofficial motto, “don’t be evil“. As the New York Times reports in “Internet Lions Turn Paper Tiger in China“, Google has joined Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco in cooperating with the Chinese government, to the detriment of their public image. What is a good free culture activist to do? Clearly we should support Google in their efforts to make information more accessible (e.g. the library digitization project), but has Google become tainted enough that we should begin boycotting and avoiding them?
While a full boycott is probably premature (at least Google hasn’t put any bloggers in jail, unlike Yahoo!), I support Students for a Free Tibet’s No Luv 4 Google Valentine’s Day boycott, to show Google that if they aren’t careful they could begin losing business due to their ethical choices. If Google traffic goes down significantly today, perhaps they will sit up and pay attention. Because Google claims to be ethically responsible, I think that pressuring Google is more likely to have an effect than applying the same pressure to, say, Microsoft.
I also think it is valuable to draw attention to Google alternatives, so that if it does become ethically necessary to boycott Google, you won’t suffer from lock-in and you will be able to make a transition with minimal inconvenience to yourself.
As for what Google can do to stay in my good graces, I think that EFF’s Chinese New Year Resolutions for Google are excellent, and if Google took the EFF’s suggestions I could continue to have faith in Google’s “don’t be evil” policy.
February 15th, 2006 at 4:57 am
[...] via FreeCulture.org [...]
March 10th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I really love how everybody views Google as such a wonderful company because they (a) have a company slogan “Do No Evil” and (b) like to make stuff available to you for free. You will learn that a company that adopts a catchphrase that is “Do No Evil” likely does evil. Also, many of the products that you access for free are not in fact FREE. Content costs money to create and unless the people who create the content are compensated access to good quality content is going to dwindle.
Google has been the dark side for a long time. Recommended reading: David Vise, The Google Story
March 30th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Нашел много статей и надеюсь многим они смогут реально помочь.
В общем, выложил на хостинг Душевный покой. Избавление от депрессии и апатии. надеюсь пригодится.. Будьте здоровы..
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April 1st, 2009 at 11:29 am
This is right here, in the present, not the future.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:36 am
It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place
June 19th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I totally agree with you
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Thoughtful post and well written. Please write more on this if you have time.
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:10 am
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September 19th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Ich halte h?ren die Nachrichten sprechen immer frei
January 3rd, 2010 at 7:18 pm
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