Visit TerraServer.com, the leader in online imagery -- Satellite, Topo Maps, Aerial Photos and more.
Tektronix. 20% off manufacturer-performed calibration right here in Santa Clara. Expert. Easy. Affordable. The new Tektronix Service Center. Click here to learn more.
Today, we're asking you to address issues that fall under the general heading of ethics and trust, a critical factor for any business and especially for Google -- partly because its founders made ethical behavior a mission cornerstone, but mainly because it collects and holds such vast stores of information about all its users, their behavior and their interests. And unlike many other companies that dominate their markets, if Google loses or abuses the public's trust, there are no barriers to exit, nothing to bind users to its free products. Google has already run into criticism over issues like its data retention policies, its respect for copyright, and its dealings with countries that have repressive human rights policies. What land mines await Google in this territory, and what can Google do to avoid them?
I'm sure almost everyone here could speak to the growing tone of distrust in the bay area as people see Google barreling in to every market they can imagine. Honestly I think some of this discontent is based on jealousy --- there is some percentage of people that will resent success no matter what.
But putting that aside, even though I think Google can do evil things at times, I have great respect and trust for everyone I know personally that works there. The best thing Google could do is take a page from Microsoft's book --- blog like there's no tomorrow. Not generic warm fuzzy press releases tied to a persona like the Google Blog, but real people like the fantastic blog from Googler Matt Cutts on search engines or the riveting narrative of Xooglers. If people really are Google's greatest asset, and they're all as brilliant as the company claims, then put them in the forefront and Google can stop seeming like an opaque and uncaring giant.
As Google's platform aspirations grow, their biggest weakness is their lack of transparancy and history of bad developer relations. If you talk to any Adsense or Adwords user, there's a subtle worry that the systems people are building their livelihood on could pull out from under them at any second. That's scary.
My recollection at age 64 deteriorates each day. I remember hearing a talk given by Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems, during which he said something like: "There is no privacy. Get over it." No one paid much attention because Mr. McNealy is a heck of a quipster.
Google is working with various US intelligence entities because it is in a unique position to do a better job of data capture and analysis than most organizations, including some government agencies.
The key to data analysis is traffic and the horsepower to process the stream. Google has a capable computing infrastructure and a reasonable flow of data identified by IP address, clicks associated with that IP, and other bits and pieces of information derived from stateful log ins and Google's reasonably clever use of multiple cookies.
What is "abuse"? I am no attorney, but I can smell some billable hours by getting the courts to define "abuse" in the context of "search." Until such a determination is made by the courts, users have some options to exercise. First, don't use Google or any other online system that tracks, data mines, and extrapolates from analyses. Second, buy an anonymizing product and use it. Several outfits offer software and hardware tools to hide one's activity. Third, keep on using systems and live with the consequences.
Human nature makes it difficult for anyone, including those in an organization, to control certain actions. Therefore, security "slips" and missteps are inevitable.
Google is one convenient target for concerns about tracking. Yahoo is nibbling away at its silos of users data in order to get a unified view of customer activity to feed the maw of Madison Avenue. Advertisers crave detail about user behavior. When specifics aren't available, cluster aggregates will be accepted... reluctantly. Microsoft does a fair job of tracking user behavior too. Remember, activation, sending "trouble reports", Hotmail, Passport, and various other services hooked to getting details about users of Microsoft products? There are companies such as A.C. Nielsen with patents regarding mechanisms for tracking user actions. Some folks park monitoring tools at network access points and analyze data streams. Amazon "knows" me well enough to suggest new books about Rome's Republic when I log on. I2 Ltd., in Cambridge, U.K. is one of the world's leading providers of link analysis to law enforcement agencies in the European Community and North America. I2's system crunches any data shoved into its maw and spits out diagrams of relationships among people, places, and events arrayed on a timeline. A click on an object displays the underlying "facts" of the instance. Works like a champ but unfortunately not available to one's local telemarketing company.
Bottomline: Google is a convenient rallying point because it has gone from man's best friend to Goog-zilla in the last six months. There will be a lot of Web log action on privacy and security. That's good. Let's explore the issues. But in the back of my mind is the image of earnest attorneys defining the rules of the game at this information fracture. Many fingers are prying apart one's private life. Slaping away those hands will be a Sisyphean task.
In a 1998 academic paper titled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine," Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page laid out their vision for what would become their company’s core product. They addressed the question of advertising in an appendix, calling into question whether ads were compatible with effective, unbiased search:
“Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. For example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for cellular phone is ‘The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver Attention’, a study which explains in great detail the distractions and risk associated with conversing on a cell phone while driving. This search result came up first because of its high importance as judged by the PageRank algorithm, an approximation of citation importance on the web. It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media, we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” They concluded that “we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.”
Today, I went to Google’s home page and did a search on “cellular phone.” After three paid listings for cell phone providers, the top result was Nokia’s home page, followed by Cingular’s. In total, six of the nine results on the first page were commercial sites selling cellular plans or equipment, two were commercial sites providing information about cell phones as a platform for advertising, and one, the last on the page, was a governmental site providing information about phone safety in cars. On the right side of the page were eight more advertisements.
I point this out not because I think PageRank is in any way biased toward Google advertisers, but simply to show how different Google is today from the vision that Brin and Page established in their 1998 paper. Google’s adoption of a commercial model built on advertising – its formative event as a company – was in a very real sense an act of self-betrayal, in which the founders abandoned their ideal of a “competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.”
In this context, the company’s famous “do no evil” motto begins to appear like a salve for a guilty conscience. Any discussion of Google’s ethics needs to begin with an acknowledgment that the business’s commercial interests have in the past compromised its founders’ ideals, and that such compromises can be expected in the future as well.
Google is a public company, not in the public interest. There's absolutely no rational reason to trust Google to do the right thing with your private data, unless you have a contract with them. You'd be foolish to do so. Their interests might not coincide with yours.
Which is troublesome. I like to make fun of Google for having "Don't be evil" as an internal slogan. It's so milquetoast--saying "we're not evil" is a lot like saying "I don't beat my wife!" and expecting someone to congratulate you for it. "Do good for the individual searcher" might have been a much more potent way to identify their mission.
It would be really nice to see Google, as a new kind of company in a very new space, publish a clearly defined set of ethical guidelines that they would then intend to follow, so that users could feel that their search history and gmails and Orkut profiles, ultimately, belonged to them, and were, essentially, on lease to Google, rather than Google owning them outright. Having strongly defined public ethics would be a way for Google to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Especially given that they represent a very important, essential service for a huge portion of those people using the Internet.
In general, Google seems to be a more ethical company than many of its competitors--it hasn't let selling out get in the way of usability. That's been one of the reasons customers like the company. I just wonder, when the terms you use to search can be used against you in court, what Google's going to do--not just in the next year but over the next 50 years.
At the risk of seeming self-serving, let me second what Matt said. I can honestly state that I have never worked with a group of people who were more concerned about making ethical decisions than the individuals I met during my five years with Google. And I say that having worked for several years at the fine newspaper company hosting this forum and for San Francisco’s renowned public broadcasting station.
I’m not just talking about business ethics and whether it’s proper to charge that second drink to the company when you’re dining alone. I’m talking about the ethical implications of products and features that conceivably will be used by millions of people worldwide being discussed on internal mailing lists by everyone from salespeople and engineers to op techs and facilities staff.
While those outside Google might disagree with the ultimate decisions the company has made, they should know that those decisions were not made without reflection on the consequences. One of my goals with Xooglers is to expose the nature of that debate. I agree with Matt that providing more transparency into how difficult decisions get made within the Googleplex can only enhance the brand. It’s not enough to say you’re not evil; you need to show the world how you define evil and how you choose to avoid it.
Google has nothing to hide on this front, yet ironically, its culture of secrecy prohibits it from proving that to the world. The advantage of silence in Google’s early days was clear: stay under the radar and maybe our competitors won’t strangle us in our crib. Those days are long gone. If Google allows more of its inner workings to be seen, they’ll establish a deeper brand than one based on great search results and fun holiday logos.
People respect companies that try to do the right thing and they sense Google is such a company. Google should show them the proof.
I'm in agreement with Doug and despite all the flack that they get for it, I think Google's attempt to introduce a Hippocratic oath into the corporate world is a noble one. No one expects Google to not make business decisions and tradeoffs, and no doubt the company is run by very smart, capable folks. What's destroying their credibility is a lack of openness around their decision making process and nonchalant attitude about the community around them. Their "trust me" and "because I said so" modus operandi isn't cutting it.
Google is one of the world's most trusted brands; its challenge is to stay that way. This is no easy feat. For as Google grows larger, it will likely spark a visceral skepticism on Main Street, where concentrations of power breed mistrust.
Left unchecked, this evolution can translate easily into greater regulatory scrutiny and/or various attacks on Google from Washington, where competitors will turn increasingly as they find it more and more difficult to compete with a juggernaut.
Managing hyper-growth has been identified by CEO Eric Schmidt as Google's top challenge. But managing political risk will be just as difficult and equally important. To compound this vexing issue, Google's "Don't Be Evil" mantra means the company will be held to higher standards by journalists and bloggers and opinion-leaders.
Proclaiming "Don't Be Evil" as its guiding principle is a bit like Gary Hart running for president, saying he is a loyal spouse, and challenging the press to follow him around to prove it. Reporters hiding in the bushes caught Gary Hart in a compromising situation that brought him down. To avoid a similar fate, Google will need to not only stay squeaky clean but also adopt and embrace a multi-faceted strategy of effective internal and external communications, philanthropy that is commensurate with its global stature and reach. Ultimately, it must embrace serving the best interests of users, shareholders, Googlers, Nooglers and the public interest across diverse cultures in many lands.
This is going to be one helluva tightrope walk. To make it across, Google needs to put a safety net in place that is as scaleable as its robust business model. Only then will Google and its ambitious founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page be able to pursue successfully their vision of the future without losing their way amid the inescapable body blows, bumps and scrapes that await them.----David A. Vise
Get an RSS Feed of this Discussion 
