Do Be Evil

Photo by Tangi Bertin on Flickr

This is the day that Google went evil. At least in my mind.

I realize that Google has done many things over the years that could be assessed as evil. But today is the first day where I caught them presenting themselves publicly as evil for all the world to see.

The first ad I saw this morning was one for Google's new "Good To Know" initiative.¹

This ad campaign tells me that it's a good thing that Google remembers everything about me
and tells it to all the web sites that I visit, so that I don't have to "re-introduce" myself to each web site. The comparison is made to a friendship, where it would be a waste of time if you had to remind your friends of your name, age, interests, personality, etc. -- every single time you met up with them.

As Mitt Romney might say, "web sites are people too, my friend".

An ad campaign like this, where you try to convince the world that your questionable practices are actually good for them, is one of the biggest signs that a company has gone full evil.

See, for example, the recent ad campaigns about fracking. I was on the fence about fracking until I saw that millions of dollars were being spent to get me to think that it is lets us drill for shale gas "safely and responsibly".

"Orwellian language," as George Lakoff says, "points to weakness." Google realizes that keeping every iota of personal information in order to maximize their revenue is bad. It goes against their policy of "Don't Be Evil". This is new. That is, Google's public acknowledgement is new. Google (or at least a senior exec inside Google) thinks that Google has joined the ranks of evil uber-corporations and needs to start acting like one.

When I woke up this morning, I wasn't too worried about the info Google keeps on me. I admit it's annoying that almost every single web page I visit is trying to sell me things that I *just bought online*. But annoying isn't evil.

:(

¹ As an aside, I must give props to the subtle naming of this initiative: a name that subconsciously implies that it is good that Google knows so much about you. I bet they spent at least six figures on cognitive science consultants to come up with this one.