Don't be evil

"Don't be evil" was Google's former motto, and a phrase used in Google's corporate code of conduct.[1][2][3]

One of Google's early uses of the motto was in the prospectus for its 2004 IPO. In 2015, following Google's corporate restructuring as a subsidiary of the conglomerate Alphabet Inc., Google's code of conduct continued to use its original motto, while Alphabet's code of conduct used the motto "Do the right thing".[4][5][6][7][8] In 2018, Google removed its original motto from the preface of its code of conduct but retained it in the last sentence.[9]

History

The motto was first suggested either by Google employee Paul Buchheit at a meeting about corporate values that took place either in early 2000[10] or 2001 or, according to another account, by Google engineer Amit Patel in 1999.[11] Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out", adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent".[10]

While the official corporate philosophy of Google[12] does not contain the words "Don't be evil", they were included in the prospectus (on Form S-1) of Google's 2004 IPO (a letter from Google's founders, later called the "'Don't Be Evil' manifesto"): "Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains."[13]

Interpretations

In their 2004 founders' letter[17] prior to their initial public offering, Larry Page and Sergey Brin argued that their "Don't be evil" culture prohibited conflicts of interest, and required objectivity and an absence of bias:

"Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a well-run newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers' payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see."

In 2009, Chris Hoofnagle, director of University of California, Berkeley Law's information privacy programs, stated that Google's original intention expressed by the "don't be evil" motto was linked to the company's separation of search results from advertising.[1] However, he observed that clearly separating search results from sponsored links is required by law, thus, Google's practice had since become mainstream and was no longer remarkable or good. Hoofnagle argued that Google should abandon the motto because:

Use in criticism of Google

Critics of Google frequently spin the motto in a negative way, such as InfoWorld's 2014 article "Google? Evil? You have no idea".[21][22][23][24][25] Google's 2012 announcement to "begin tracking users universally across all its services" (via "Google Plus" accounts) prompted early privacy and anti-trust concerns referencing the motto,[26][27]

Lawsuit

On 29 November 2021, three former Google employees filed a lawsuit alleging that Google's motto "Don't be evil" amounts to a contractual obligation that the tech giant violated, that Google broke their own moral code by firing them as retaliation for their efforts against "evil", in what the trio thought were in accordance with the principle, in drawing attention to and organizing employees against controversial projects, such as work for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during the first Trump administration which they claimed amounted to "doing evil", and as such deserve monetary damages.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Laurie Burgess, says Google employees can be fired for not abiding by the motto.

"There are all sorts of contract terms that a jury is required to interpret: 'don't be evil' is not so 'out there' as to be unenforceable. 'Since Google's contract tells employees that they can be fired for failing to abide by the motto, 'don't be evil,' it must have meaning.' - plaintiffs' lawyer, Laurie Burgess"

The trio had circulated a petition calling on Google to publicly commit to not working with the CBP. The three workers (along with a fourth) were later fired in 2019 on a denied accusation of "clear and repeated violations" of the company's data security policies.

The National Labor Relations Board wrote, in May 2021, that Google "arguably violated" federal labor law by "unlawfully discharging" the workers.

The trio condemned Google for their behavior in 2021:

"Google realized that 'don't be evil' was both costing it money and driving workers to organize. Rather than admit that their stance had changed and lose the accompanying benefits to the company image, Google fired employees who were living the motto.

See also

• Censorship by Google
• Ethical code
• Evil corporation
• Friendly artificial intelligence
• Googlization
• List of mottos
• Surveillance capitalism