Google, as one example, prides itself in having an ethical culture as evidenced

Question

Google, as one example, prides itself in having an ethical culture as evidenced by its motto – “Don’t be evil.” To the extent that collecting, understanding and using all the data that it collects from following your “click throughs” is really the entire basis of Google’s business model, and given its enormous success enabled by that business model, it could be argued that Google’s hundreds of millions of worldwide users pretty much agree that what Google does is just fine. Do you agree? Or does Google’s motto need a little updating if it is to be accurate?

Explanation / Answer

Whatever Google is doing and the business model of Google is just fine but the definition and the message behind it has to be altered a bit so as to ensure that with changing times, changing methods of operation the changed definition conveys the exact meaning. Also, we need to acknowledge the fact that ethical data collection is not the only source of business model as paid advertisements in the form of Ad-words also contributes to the economic progress. Hence, Google’s motto need a little updating as DONOT DO EVIL no longer holds true as the current business model does not involve only ethically collecting and processing the data, rather the data is now used in various campaigns that are promotional and it has been in the news recently that Google is actually selling certain data to many companies which is completely unethical but this is only a speculation and no evidence has been found. The bottom line is Google’s motto does not hold completely true in today’s situations and the current business model indicates that growth and profits are slowly taking over ethics.

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