"Don't Be Evil" is the corporate mantra for Google.
Though it sounds casual and trite, the Don't Be Evil ethic is a powerful organizing principle for Google and other corporations. It recognizes that without a guiding principle, large corporations can maximize short-term profits with actions that destroy long-term brand image and competitive position. By instilling a Don't Be Evil culture, the corporation establishes a baseline for decision making that can enhance the trust and image of the corporation that outweighs short-term gains from violating the Don't Be Evil principles.
Don't Be Evil in Action
While many companies have ethical codes to govern their conduct, Google has made their philosophy a central pillar of their identity and business practices.
Avoiding Conflicts of Interest
In their 2004 founders' letter prior to their initial public offering, Lawrence E. Page and Sergey Brin explained 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.
Because Google holds great power over the information the public relies on, the company recognizes a fiduciary duty to uphold the public trust by refusing payments that would influence the information they provide to users. The company holds themselves to journalistic standards and ethics even when they could earn more money in the short term by violating those standards.
Singular Focus on Users
In addition to refusing payments that would distort the information provided to users, Google also refuses to employ techniques that would take advantage of users' trust. According to their published corporate philosophy, the company believes by focusing on the user, all else will follow:
- While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site....By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web. And that growth has come not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.
Controversy
After Google's IPO, and following a wave of corporate scandals, skeptics have accused the company of hypocrisy and violating the spirit of its Don't Be Evil policy. Google has been sued for allowing competitors of the plaintiff to advertise using trademarked keywords, and has been accused of tacitly allowing click fraud to boost its profits.
Google has been accused of violating its Don't Be Evil ethic by censoring what advertisements it will accept and by filtering content from local search results in Germany and China that is restricted by local governments.
There has also been significant criticism of companies that promote their corporate social responsibility, since many economists and business leaders believe that a corporation's first duty is to maximize shareholder value. This point of view holds that corporate social responsibility is either cynical and empty self-promotion (if the company's social responsibility claims are false), or detrimental to shareholder value (if the claims are true). Google claims a third position, that a Don't Be Evil culture is a prerequisite to building shareholder value in the long term for a company that requires public trust to achieve its mission.