Don't Be Evil?

The true test of corporate values isn't what's in a company's annual report or on its website. The true test is how a company behaves on a daily basis and how it responds in times of crisis. In business, as in politics, Harold Macmillan's famous words about what's liable to scupper the best laid plans ("Events, dear boy, events.") hold true. Recent events have presented such a test to Google in the form of the Google China censorship brouhaha (Deliciously weird word that, isn't it?). In particular, Google's actions in relation to its corporate motto, "Don't Be Evil", have been the subject of much discussion and criticism, as a quick search with, yes, you guessed it, Google will reveal.

According to one report from the just-ended 2006 World Economic Forum meeting, Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, explained his company's actions as follows:

"We concluded that although we weren't wild about the restrictions, it was even worse to not try to serve those users at all. We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil."

Which is fair enough I suppose.

One can't help wondering though, what would Google do if say a Southern African government took a similar line to that of the Chinese goverment? That's not as farfetched as it sounds. There is such a thing as Google Zambia, for instance.