Do Backroom Deals, Secrecy Make Google A Fallen Hero?

On its way up, Google rarely talked about anything—especially its algorithm. The more the company let fans into its world (that is, once the company learned of the power of branding), the more carefully the Googtopia narrative was built, a narrative with a kind of
The first chink in Google’s moral armor came about the same time the company went public, when Sergey Brin, faced with the realities of doing business in China, repealed the Don’t Be Evil policy. Sometimes, one might proffer, business requires a little evil to survive. The boardroom ain’t exactly Sunday School.

Some time later, thanks to some either uninformed or unapproved chatter from up high in the legal policy ranks, it appeared that Google was reconsidering its stance on Net Neutrality. Those words were taken back post haste by those who understand public relations better than lawyers. We troubledly pondered beneath that brief flicker of doubt if
Part of that could be the economy, which has GOOG stock at disappointing levels despite killing estimates, which has led to layoffs, cuts in food budgets, and—quelle horreur—Google reportedly stocking Apple and Google in secret anti-Microsoft, no-touch-screen-for-the-Google-Phone cahoots, for example, or paper only with the SEC about special AP news page.

Sigh. Is this the end of our transparent, fight-the-good-fight Justice League Google and the beginning of a more Microsoft-like, fight-the-good-fight-only-if-it-makes-fiduciary-sense meganational media super-giant Google? Have we lost another one to the almighty faceless shareholder?

It may be a necessary evolution that a company like Google—whom we love for various reasons, not the least of which is they still do good things via Google.org and other outlets—become more like Microsoft if the company expects to compete with Microsoft. But we hope, once the economic smoke clears, Google returns to that virtue which propelled it to Microsoft competitor status, to that which drove Microsoft mad with jealousy, despite being very unlike Microsoft.

That’s the Google we love, hope, and root for.