Don’t Be Evil < Don’t Not Make Money

I think that very often Google’s friendly image as the “anti-MAN” gets in the way of the fact it is a corporation.

The “Don’t be evil” motto and Google’s defiance towards the US Gov both reinforce this. In a way Google has filled the role as the digital “Cool older brother” who lets you stay up and watch TV past bedtime when mom and dad leave him in charge and tries to make sure you don’t get picked last at recess. And I think that these “Cool older brother” attributes are not so unfitting of Google- but they do get in the way of the fact that it is a business.

And when this “cool older brother” image collides with the corporate Google in cases like Google.cn, we have a conflict of realities.

It’s like when you see your second grade teacher at the movies with her husband!@#$ Doesn’t she live at school!?! What is she doing here!

I think Google can position their decision to block content in order to provide service for China however they want- but the fact is, as a corporation they are legally bound to make money for their stockholders.

British BBC reader Rich C, Skye and Bonn said it well when they/he commented on the BBC Google censors itself for China article, “Google is a business, businesses tend to want to maximise profits.”

I think if we continue to idolize Google as our “cool older brother” it might be too late before we realize Google is in fact our very un-cool Big Brother.