Defining Google’s Legal and Ethical Controversy
‘Just Google it’—a saying that has become an integral part of everyday vocabulary. The worlds most popular search engine can provide people, worldwide with access to information that otherwise would not be available. Whether you’re looking to find pictures of the Holi celebration in India or find a local NYC eatery where you can have brunch, with just a click of a button, Google always has an answer.
Despite the greatness that Google has brought to the world, on April 15, 2015 the European Union filed an Antitrust lawsuit against Google. The European Commission addresses four main areas of concern in Google’s operation: “potential bias in Google’s search results, scraping content from rival websites, agreements with advertisers that may exclude rival search-advertising services and contracts that limit marketers from using other platforms .” I feel that Google has the legal right to favor its own search results over its competitors and that it is ethical for Google to use its dominance of the search-engine market to its advantage.
Situation Analysis
Google is a technology company operating on a global level. It employs 32,000 employees and generates annual revenues of about $38 billion .
Google first came underfire for unfair competition concerns in the U.S. during 20132. Before the FTC conducted a through investigation, Google pledged to alter its business practices. Google’s agreement eased the Federal Trade
• Google has a world-class staff of more than 2,668 employees known as Googlers. The company headquarters is called the Googleplex.
Sergey Brin noted, “Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines, unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.” Nicholas Carr’s essay challenges this assertion. Nicholas Carr believes even though there are multiple search engines, “the faster we surf across the Web-the more links we click and pages we view-the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements.” This topic elicits such strong responses because technology is a part of our everyday lives. Technology is only becoming more advanced and will continue to be a source of debate for all who use it.
While I totally appreciate the slight negative opinions of others here in my personal opinion it all comes down to the fact that Google is actually a business and so has to make money. I appreciate that some of its dealings are a little 'shady' but show me a Global corporation that doesn’t come across this way in some elements of what it does. (Think Apple and its over priced media services.)
Today, Google, Inc. is worth more than General Motors, McDonald's and Disney combined, and the company continues to model the way in the global technology industry in which it competes. In fact, the company's name has become a verb and it is common practice for consumers to "Google" what they want to find online. To determine how Google, Inc. reached this dazzling level of performance in a relatively short period of time, this paper provides an analysis of the three external environments in which Google competes, the general environment, the industry environment and the competitor environment. Next, a discussion of two specific strategic issues as well as opportunities and threats that are facing Google, Inc. is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.
Google was investigated for antitrust behavior because they were claimed to be an “internet bully that abuses its dominance of online search and advertising” (STEINHAUSER & LIEDTKE, 2011, p. 1). Google was doing things like buying smaller companies in search results but then labeling/highlighting their own services instead. Being that Google was knocking out the competition by only showing their results
Google Company is one of the global leaders in technology and in enabling people access information from the internet through their efficient search engines. Google immediately gained the attention of the internet sector for being a better search engine than its competitors (Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman, & Bamford, 2015). This was after a tremendous effort in marketing their services and capturing a large market worldwide. However, there being so many risks and challenges in this line of business Google has had the urge to come up with new strategies so that they are able to overcome any challenge before them. The major problem that Google has
Google, like any other successful companies, deals with ethical issues on a day-to-day basis. Google’s corporate mantra simply put - “Don’t be evil” (Google), is what drives their corporate ethics in doing business. Being the data juggernaut that they are, questionable business ethics arise often in relation to privacy.
Google is one of the most popular, and most used web search engines in the world. Google also has many services that helps you send mail, generate website pages, and create blogs. With all of these great tools come many great, user-friendly features specifically tied to Google. Google has vastly become one of the best search engines in the world, if not the best. Google averages about 12 billion searches per month, which is the most by any search engine in the world. Users can also search for photos, newsletters, and even geographic locations. The best part is, that all of these services are basically free. Google has also set to build more then just a search engine. Google is working on Google glass, self-driving cars, and even have a cell phone called the Android. Google also owns the rights to YouTube, where many users go to upload and watch countless videos. Another great thing the company is doing is spending money on alternative energy sources; last year Google spent 1 billion dollars trying to increase the use of wind and solar energy. Google is also fighting in D.C. to keep the Internet free for Americans. Lastly, Google has one of the best working environments in the world. Google has been the number 1 best company to work for 5 times in a row, including this year. They have been reported to the best human resources department in the world, taking their employee’s happiness over profit. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Google is not the best company to work
Google is arguably the most popular search engine used on the internet. The company offers superior search results and clearly employs workers with innovative ideas that can keep the company ahead of the competition. However Google’s own mission statement requires that it “Do no evil,” meaning that it has made readily available the tools that have made the company successful. The Justice Department would like to categorize Google as a monopoly, but due to its open book reporting and its development of additional services, proving monopolistic status would be difficult and perhaps ineffective.
Google is a multinational corporation that serves thousands of consumers worldwide. Through Internet related products such as Internet searches, maps, emails, mobile apps, and other online contents for users Google became the company it is today. Every employee of Google is different in his or her own way; making it a well-diversified organization similar to the global audience they serve. Google’s mission statement is to organize information from all around the world and make it universally accessible at a quick and orderly fashion. This means creating a search engine smart
Though Google seemed to promote free-thinking and free speech on one hand, they were censoring and filtering with the other. Google lost credibility with the public, thus tarnishing its public image and “loosing 1% of the U.S. market in one month,” as reported in The Business. (2006, Aug) “Image credibility is based on the constituency’s perception of the organization” (Argenti, 2009, p.39). When the public image of a company has been compromised it “can make a huge difference in determining the success or failure of the organization” (Argenti, 2009, p. 40). When the public looses confidence in a company and what they stand for, they no longer wish to use its product. In response, executives at Google attempted to convince the public that they could handle the balancing act between censorship and providing information, and gain back public trust and confidence.
Google is the most popular search engine that the world uses on an everyday basis. Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google in 1998. What started out to be a small search engine and ranking system are now the worlds most profitable Internet companies of our time. Google has created many products today that have changed the world of technology, products such as Google+, YouTube, Android, Motorola Mobility, the Nexus 7 tablet computer, Google Wallet, and Google Glass (p.470). Google is qualified as one of the best companies to work for (p.464.) The issue we are facing today is the privacy policy
Google is a company that was conceptualized in a dorm room by two Stanford University college students in 1996 (Arnold, 2005, p. 1) and has morphed into one of the greatest technological powerhouses in operation today. What began as merely a means to analyze and categorize Web sites according to their relevance has developed into a vast library of widely utilized resources, including email servicing, calendaring, instant messaging and photo editing, just to reference a few. Recent statistics collected by SearchEngineWatch.com reflects that of the 10 billion searches performed within the United States during the month of February, 2008, an impressive 5.9 billion of them were executed by Google (Burns, 2008). Rated as Fortune Magazine’s
In 1998, Stanford University graduates Larry Page and Sergey Brin combined their ingenuity and built a search engine called “BackRub” that evolved into what is now known as Google. Google, with over 150 domains, now functions as a search engine that offers many different products and services including web applications, advertising, sports scores, stock quotes, headlines, addresses, videos, etc. Google’s focus is “to provide useful and relevant information to the millions of people around the world as they rely on us (Google) to provide the answers they are seeking.”
As we can infer from the table above, Google‘s mission is consistent with its objectives in terms of how they complement each other. In its mission, Google promises to organize the world’s information and make it available for everyone to access. On the other hand, Google’s first objective is to provide information independent of any financial incentives. Moreover, they clearly state that their profits are mainly derived from advertising while information providing is for free. Google focuses on improving its operation by achieving higher quality products in order to better satisfy consumers, while the objectives precisely states that Google will employee all potential technological developments to improve users’ experience.