Google

Don't be evil

Tuesday 7 June 2011, by Bengana Abdeljalil, Wague Moussa

10 inspired

A) One of its main activity it’s to be a perfect search engine. But Google offers other services like YouTube, a website which allow broadcasting videos on the web. G-mail is a service of e-mail address; Google maps allow users to locate a place in the worldwide. Google also offers e-books with Google books. In addition, most of its services are free for customers.

B) We see one of its ethical challenges of Google in their mission: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and makes it universally and useful. Also Google encourages its staff to be involved in their efforts and insist about the importance of ethics and compliance to its employees. In Google Headquarters, they use material eco-friendly and encourage staff to recycle. In addition Google collaborate with NGOs and academics to promote free expression.
One of its challenges it’s to respect and maintain its own values. The value of Google are :
-  Focus on the user and all else will follow
-  It’s best to do one thing really, really well
-  Fast is better than slow
-  Democracy on the web works
-  You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer
-  You can’t make money without be evil
-  There always more information out there
-  The need information crosses all borders
-  You can be serious without a suit
-  Great just isn’t good enough

One the one Hand Google is which promote free speech and defense on human right. But in another hand Google deal with China and accepted the censure of Chinese Government. And the other problem, Google information lead to the lack of respect of consumers’ private life and infraction about copyright.

C) We believe that this company is ethical, because this company create a climate of confidence between its employees and itself . Google is a company very informal and this informal culture which attract people to work for Google. Since fourth years Google is the first world attractive employers. The company contribute to well-being of to its employees. This informal culture lead employee from Google to have more liberties.
Thanks to that, employees of the company are more innovative. Google also offer to its employees many perks and other bonus, compensation packages. In addition Google employees have good working conditions. Most of Googlers (employee of Google) like to work to their company. It’s not a coincidence if Google was in 2008 in the ranking of most ethical company.
Google use its information and technology to warm people about problems like environment, poverty and health or disaster. Google invest and give grant around the world. Additionally Google work with companies, NGO and academics to promote free speech and privacy. In addition services of Google are free for their consumers and thanks to Google information in Internet is easily accessible.

D)

We believe that one of the challenges the company faces is to establish a business development to continue its ethical principles.
On many levels, Google is a company that is achieving its goals and it is being successful. At this time, the American society has no rival. The main challenge of Google is not currently facing is the competition but His goal for the next years will be to consolidate and confirm his status of leader of the search engine technology. But the main objective of the society is to create the perfect search engine which will find the things we are looking for and answer to our questions.
We this that this company may improve his business by guarantee and respect the private life and the personal information of his users.

Bibliography

Google story - Enqu?te sur l’entreprise qui est en train de changer by David A. Vise, Dominique Maniez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/corporate/
http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html
http://www.google.com/green/

Start a new discussion

4 Discussions / 5 Messages

  • Google 5 June 2012 at 17:53 , by Mohammad Pazhohnia

    I like Google because, first of all, I like its Image, its Logo, and its simplicity while it is so smart. second, It is a state-of-the art IT company aiming to provide information for people for free. I think its philosophy is to take good care of the people for their pain points in terms of searching. It aims to help people with the best and fast possible ways.

    Moreover, it is reliable, available and secure. it is reliable which means if you cant find something on Google you barely can find it on other search engines. It is secure which means you can easily trust your Google profiles such as Gmail or Google+. Moreover, all its products are synchronized smartly and you can enjoy this synchronization. The scope of products that Google is providing is covering greatly basic needs of online users such as Maps, Books, Scholar, Translator, and etc.

    In terms of Ethics, as far as I know it is not exploiting human being outside of the firm. Moreover, In the firm, the work environment of Google is one of the most desired in the world for employees who are looking for the best companies to work, which means it is not exploiting its human resources at the first glance either. All in all, I think that Google is running its business for its profit first and later for contribution to improve the lifestyle of human in the world which ultimately would result to a better life of human being in a better environment.

  • Google and its Culture of Search 4 October 2012 at 08:05 , by Zufeng_chen

    In my opinion, Google’s culture is appreciated and inspired by the public because its mission and culture reflects the freedom and democracy. As a famous company which creates excellent products like the Search Engine, OS and other hardware, Google’s objective is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. The mission leads to the most revolutionary company of the world, which encourages the technological innovation. The spirit of innovation is the philosophy of Google. It creates countless solutions for human beings to facilitate and improve the people’s lives.

    Additionally, in Google office the employees can find the most comfortable work environment of the world. The modern devices and relaxed atmosphere inspires the creativity of engineers. The eco-friendly atmosphere and attitude of Google makes people believe they are following an excellent leader to realize their dreams.

    Furthermore, Google’s spirit embodies humanitarian care. It’s an ethical company which always pay more attention to its business ethics and social responsibilities. It creates the unprofitable charity organization Google.org, the Creative Fund plan for undergraduates, Google Grants program for free advertising, and also participates in many public benefit activities frequently. All of these above, with the informal slogan is "Don’t be evil", presents an excellent corporate image for the public.

    Currently there are still some controversial problem for Google, like the individual privacy issues in Google Earth service. It seems there is a contradiction for Google between business ethics and the faith of internet neutrality. On one hand, Google insists internet neutrality and maintain opening attitude for the information, which means these information are available as long as customers search them from the site. On the other hand, actually Google provides the private information which harms for customers. I think although the issues above still exists, it can’t stop the steps of being the greatest company in history. As an internet company which provides the massive information for their customers, it should reflect customer loyalty factually. Therefore, it can’t filter those information which users search because providing the true and precise information is the value and core of Google.

    • Google and its Culture of Search 28 February 2013 at 23:46 , by Laura 11

      I agree with you about the idea of thei internal structure and way of work. Google is a very influential company in their market. For this reason many people want to apply to work in this big company. It’s very hard to get as you have to spend more than six selection processes. Even so, this company receives more than one million applications per year.
      The company works with more than thirty products. This must be very well controlled by supervisors and workers. Google are very important for workers who are motivated to continue working and presenting projects to their bosses.
      For all this is very important human resources department of the company.

      If Google has been able to implement this strategy is that it introduced a way of working in the company since he founded the company.
      I also think that Google has implemented this strategy in which left 20% of the employee time off because they want to motivate their workers to think in new products or projects. This could be applied in some companies but not all companies because many are functional and have to meet many short term goals so employees have specific and have no time to think about other things.
      Anyway, it is not easy to enter for working with Google because you need a degree in a prestigious university and spend six selection processes. So the company has very good workers and allowed them time off, then the employee conquer more.

      To finish, add that Google has been a role model for many companies and has given much prestige level as international company. They have adapted a new vision to motivate and encourage workers to perform at their best.

  • Google 5 October 2012 at 10:17 , by Xi,Limin

    I‘m qutie interested in the google case. Not only because it is the world’s largest website company,but also because the interesting company policies it has and its little confict with China,as the article stated, the censorship issue.
    Google is well-known by the people not only by its product but also by the fancy welfare for its employees. Recently, there is another news spreading over the world says that google issued a new welfare that if its employee die in a accident,the company will offer the fanicial aid to the rest family rest of their lives.For me that is a classical accordance of the company’s profits and its social responsibilities. Google has been the best employer in the world for quite a long time, that happened for a reason.And I belive it is a beneficial circle.
    About Google’s predicament in China,I really feel quite bad for it.I like to use google and wikpedia very much.(thank god I don’t need to crack the GFW to visit wikipedia) But since google tried to withdraw its business from China. Things started get worse. Everytime I click the wrong link in google(website out of the GFW), I can’t use google search for 3 or 5 minutes. But I don’t blame google. It has been struggling to provide its good service for many years in China. The reality is you must obey,not only the law in China,but also every "instruction" the government gives you. Google is lucky to be a foreign company that has a option of withdrawal.

  • Google 26 February 2013 at 12:23 , by Aurélie

    I chose Google as company that most inspired me (in the list given on the website) because of two reasons:

    1) The goal of the company: it is a very huge company, with a very huge goal, that is to be the number one in the world information exchange industry. Google has a great capacity of adaptability, a creativity hard to imitate and a proximity to the clients that made them so efficient and powerful. Google offers a very good service to clients, and innovates a lot offering regularly new products that make easier client’s life and organization (applications like google calendar, gmail, stats...) and also products to compete with the other giants of the social net (buzz, google plus...). It is a company that focus entirely to innovation, research, and high quality.

    2) Google not only is close to its customers, it is also a model for employees’ empowerment and motivation. I don’t know if this company still remain number one in the ranking of the best companies for working in, but I think it is great that a big global company cares about happiness and motivation for its employees, and all the companies should understand that productivity is above all reached if the staff is happy and committed. Money is not all, flexibility and empowerment is very important, may be most.

Location: Menlo Park (United States of America, California)

Sector: internet services, search engine

Official website: http://www.google.com

Key figures:

Company figures:

Revenue: US$ 29.321 billion (2010)
Operating income: US$ 10.381 billion (2010)
Profit: US.505 billion (2010)
Total assets: .851 billion (2010)
Total equity: US.241 billion (2010)
Employees: 26,316 (March 31, 2011)

Nbr. visits: 949

Nbr. inspires: 10