Google is a very significant entity for content writing services due to its control over what gets seen on the internet. That plus their status as a Fortune 500 company in America usually means that the company would be guilty of immoral practices as they try to retain their control and create even greater wealth. However Google’s well publicised mantra is ‘Don’t be Evil’. Are they succeeding?
Big Business
There is a well publicised gap between the rich and the poor in America. The top 1% of America are 288 times wealthier than the average American family. CEO’s at top companies received 231 times more than average private sector workers in 2012. However Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s salaries were limited to just $1 in 2013. Of course other executives at the company shared $124 million between them, and Page and Brin do have extremely valuable stock in Google as way of compensation – but then they did found the company. A good start in not being evil.
Scandals
Google was once accused of stealing the customer database of a client in Kenya. Google have however apologised for this, taking responsibility for a ‘Google Project’ which implies it was not necessarily Google employees that were guilty of the immoral practice. That the top executives in America were aware of what was going on in Kenya is doubtful, and accepting responsibility is more than many of their fellow Fortune 500 counterparts would do.
Piracy
Piracy is another big issue on Google. Should their links point to websites that host copyrighted material? It is impossible for Google to know the contents of every single site it hosts – there are literally billions, and Google has made significant efforts, having removed over 100 million sites at the requests of copyright owners in 2013.
Regard for Content Writing Services.
Removing 100 million links is not enough for billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch as he criticised Google for not doing enough to block piracy. However for many, being on the opposite side of any issue to Rupert Murdoch automatically makes you not evil. Murdoch even pulled his UK newspapers websites from Google as they did not rank as highly as other sites, only to reinstate them after falls in advertising revenue. Murdoch clearly felt his websites should be exempt from the practices that content writing services and other sites have to comply with. Murdoch’s papers are not free to access, so receive less views than free to view sites, meaning they rank lower with Google. It is difficult not to see this dispute from Google’s point of view, and applaud the company for not backing down.
Competition
Google has created the Chrome Browser to help promote search as the default search engine. However Google actively supports other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox to the tune of $300 million in order to be the default search on their browser. Google are surely aware to pull that funding would lead to the demise of Mozilla and competition on the browser front, with most probably switching to Google Chrome. Google also goes head to head with Apple in the Smartphone market with its Android OS, but Gmail and Maps are also available for Apple’s iOS.
Conclusion – Not Evil?
As far as we know, Google appear to be doing a good job of appearing not evil and becoming many people’s favourite company in the process – never a bad thing for marketing. They do however have so much power that you fear the prospect of any loss in morality in the future. Fortunately for content writing services, having clear and ethical approaches to Search keeps the users faith in the system and it is unlikely any large UK businesses will be able to bribe their way to the top of the search results any time soon.