Technolawguy originally used the Blogger platform but we’ve decided to migrate it to WordPress; as a result the articles and other content will be unavailable for some time.
In part our decision to migrate is due to the advantages of WordPress over Google’s Blogger platform but the primary reason is that, like many who value their privacy, we are slowly working to de-Google our lives.
Google has changed dramatically since the years when “Don’t Be Evil” served as both rallying cry and moral compass. Google has not only removed “Don’t Be Evil” as their motto but even from their code of conduct. In some ways this is an improvement as it, at the very least, is a more honest reflection of Google’s corporate culture.
There is so much that can be said about Google’s descent but, at least for now, we’ll leave that to this representative handful of articles and essays from the last ten years:
- Do No Evil? Google’s Deceptive Practices Harm Consumers (Forbes – July 15, 2011)
- Why Everyone Thinks Google Has Lost Its Way And Become Evil (Business Insider – May 4, 2012)
- New Google Parent Company Drops ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto (TIME – October 4, 2015)
- Google Removes ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Clause From Its Code of Conduct (GIZMODO – May 18, 2018)
- Three Signs Google Is Turning to the Dark Side (Futurism – May 21, 2018)
- Google Quietly Removes ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Preface from Code of Conduct (Independent – May 21, 2018)
- Google Becomes Evil (The Techno Skeptic – October 16, 2019)
- Former Google Exec: ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto Is Dead (PCMag – January 2, 2020)
- ‘Don’t be evil’: Has Google forgotten its original motto? (ZDNet – January 3, 2020)
- Google reportedly ran secret ‘Project Bernanke’ that boosted its own ad-buying system over competitors (The Verge – April 11, 2021)
And yes, we are aware of the fiction that Alphabet, Google’s “parent” company, is the one who is pulling the strings:
“It’s out of our hands folks! Were it up to us we’d totally stop being a terrible company. For reals!”
But no, long ago we learned not to buy into such fictions when Toto revealed to all of us the reality of what hides in the shadows behind the curtain.