Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Do no evil (for the stock holders)

It is be coming clear that the original motto of "do no evil", which the Fortune Magazine reports Google takes very seriously, is not strictly supported with facts by the company. The repetition of the fallacious argument that it is better to give censored access to Google's magnificent search technology than no access at all fails for many reason, being one very important the fact that the user will be presented with false results that show as the existing information only a part of the actual information, resulting in users believing that they have something that they actually don't thanks to censorship that Google practices on its Google.cn. It can be argued that it is actually worse when a company that praises itself of doing no harm does it big (like in this case) because it gives some sense of legitimacy to those designing the policies. So, yes, Google is doing evil, and in big form! (so, it is time to change the "Ten things that Google has found to be true" to either 9 or changing the 6th by something like "you can do evil if it makes you a lot of money")
At least that is what US Representative Chris Smith seems to understand, what has led him to re-introduce his bill that "aims to promote free expression and a free flow of information on the Internet by preventing U.S. companies from aiding regimes who restrict access to the Internet." It is also time that the rest of the members of Congress and the White House support the initiative or shut up and stop talking about freedom, democracy and all the other things they say when they want to attack a country or government.

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