I suppose “Don’t Be Evil” is a pretty good corporate mantra to have, if you must have one.
But as USA Today points out, the Google backlash is starting.
Lauren Fine, a media analyst at Merrill Lynch, warned in a Nov. 28 research note that the launch of services like Google Base classified advertising could tarnish its do-only-good reputation. “As Google’s newer businesses start to encroach on some otherwise profitable business models, we have to ask how they define evil,” Fine wrote.
It’s an interesting article, especially when compared to what the New York Times wrote about just the other day. I suppose evil is in the eye of the beholder. I use Google all the time, so it seems relatively un-evil to me. But if Google is replacing Microsoft on the Evil-meter in the minds of many, will someone come along and replace Google?
