From its start in a garage in Silicon Valley in 1998, Google has become one of the most powerful technologydriven companies in the world. Started by two graduate students at Stanford University as an improvement on the existing Internet search engines, Google’s philosophy is to offer everyone in the world free access to all of the information in the world. As a result, the two main objectives of Google as it evolves are to organize the information around the world and “Don’t be evil.” In 2005, Harris Polling and the Reputation Institute of New York did their annual ranking of the companies with the highest corporate reputation. Google entered the ranking for the first time in 2005 at number three behind Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola.

The Privacy of Gmail

On April 1, 2004, Google announced in a press release that it was offering a new free e-mail system called Gmail. The press release also mentioned that this decision was inspired by a customer who complained to Google about her e-mail service’s low storage capacity and inefficient filing and searching technology. Google responded by developing an e-mail service that offered 1 gigabyte of storage capacity (which is equivalent to 500,000 pages of e-mail per user) and an easy way to organize e-mail messages. However, what the e-mail did not announce was that Google would search the contents of its customers’ e-mails and design “customized” ads based on the content. This just was the first of many issues in which Google appeared to be caught off guard with negative comments related to its Gmail strategy. Some people even thought the Gmail press release was an April Fool’s Day trick pulled by Google’s cofounders when Google also announced that day that it was hiring positions for its lunar office.

Google responded to the criticism, which started on April 2, 2004, by stating that no human being would read the customer’s e-mail, but a computer program would do an automatic search for key content words. Google also stated that the e-mail system would have enhanced search features for the user to help coordinate the user’s e-mails. Customers using Gmail would be able to search their e-mail storage by the traditional sender and by topic or any other search word the user wanted to choose. In addition, Gmail would have more antispam filters to help reduce the number of unwanted e-mails sent to the user’s account. However, the underlying issue was whether Google could present this “free” e-mail system to users in which they potentially have their privacy compromised to ensure content-related advertising. Google tried to reduce the privacy fears by stating that the advertising would be used for only incoming e-mails and would not be attached to outgoing e-mails.

Chris Hoofnagle, who was the associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, compared the Google advertising methods to having a telephone operator listening to your phone calls and interrupting you with commercial messages when you are talking to another party. When Wayne Rosing, Google vice president of engineering, was asked whether it would be possible for a person writing about pro-life to have abortion advertising inserted in the e-mail, his answer was no because Google does not take advertising revenue concerning sensitive issues. However, he did admit that if the e-mail was talking about politics, an advertisement for a political candidate could be included in the e-mail.

There are also potential problems with matching the content of the e-mails and the associated placement ads.

When a Gmail user wrote about a British singer named Lily Allen, an ad for lily and lotus pond plants was placed in the e-mail. Another Gmail user wrote about going to a party in New York and an ad for bachelor party strippers was placed with the e-mail. In summarizing the placement of the ads, the user writing about Lily Allen stated that the ads are creepy when they match up exactly with the discussion and are hilarious when they do not match up with the written content.

Another concern is the legal use of keeping information that is sent through Gmail without the user being protected by the rights given by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The act states that Internet service providers (ISPs) and any other organizations are not allowed to monitor the content of electronic communications unless they have specifically identified a reason to do so, such as filtering spam or preventing the release of confidential information.

The Privacy of Individuals

In a stunning show of hypocrisy, Google punished an entire news agency after one of its reporters searched for and published background information about the company’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. It took Elinor Mills from CNETNews.com just 30 minutes to obtain as much relevant information as was available on Schmidt. Using only Google’s search capability, Mills discovered that Schmidt was 50 years old, was worth approximately $1.5 billion, had sold $90 million in Google stock in the early part of 2005, and had sold another $50 million in shares in the middle of 2005. She also discovered that Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, live in Atherton, California, and she was able to get his home address from the Federal Election Commission database. Schmidt attended a Democratic fundraiser that cost $10,000 a plate in 2000. In addition, Schmidt is an amateur pilot.

When Google became aware of the article, Google’s director of public relations, David Krane, stated that Google would not talk to any reporter from CNET for a year. This reaction seemed to contradict Schmidt’s statement in May 2005 that the goal of Google is to organize all the information in the world....

Questions

1. Given its mission of providing information to the world, should Google censor searches in China?

2. Why do you think Google was adamant about not wanting to supply information requested by the government concerning the Child Online Protection Act? Explain your position.

3. What do you think Google’s rationale was for starting its Google Books Library Project?

4. Of all the issues discussed in this case, which issue is the most disconcerting to you? Why?