Justice Dept. says Larry Page knew about rogue drug ads
Justice Dept. says Larry Page knew about rogue drug ads.
Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page condoned ads from rogue online Canadian pharmacies, says a Justice Department official who led the investigation into the case and talked to The Wall Street Journal about it.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20...#ixzz1WFgRcrdr
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...J_Tech_LEADTop
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20...ap;editorPicks
Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page condoned ads from rogue online Canadian pharmacies, says a Justice Department official who led the investigation into the case and talked to The Wall Street Journal about it.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20...#ixzz1WFgRcrdr
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...J_Tech_LEADTop
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20...ap;editorPicks
Comments
Google = Evil
Worthwhile addition to a 2 day old thread no one is responding too.
I haven't made my mind up about Google yet. Eric Schmidt did play the villain in Indiana Jones:
but I think Google's motives generally come across as good, just the means they use to reach them not so much.
Their agenda for freedom and openness in their mobile OS and marketplace is commendable but not when it means ripping innovation from Apple to do it.
Delivering accurate search results is highly desirable but not at the expense of personal privacy.
It's clear that spammers work around their search algorithms to hit the top rankings and Google seems to have no ethics when it boils down to where the money is coming from. As long as it keeps rolling in, it gives them the opportunity to do other things they see as right such as funding alternative energy resources.
However, like a hooker selling her body to put her kid through college, once you compromise on your base ethics, you've already taken a step too far. Many people are guilty of this when it comes to advertising though and marketing people are among some of the most amoral people you'll ever meet. This is pretty much Google's main source of revenue so evil is inevitably present.
Question is, if they stand by higher moral values, do they lose significant enough revenue to have to shut down some of their services like Google Voice, Google Code, GMail, Android, Google Maps, Youtube etc. from which they don't profit significantly?
The love of money is a root of evil but the financial services we live by are designed in such a way that we have no choice but to support them - this design is no accident. It is possible to operate a profitable business without horribly compromising your ethics as Apple seems to do but few companies can hope to match this success because not all business models have the same margins from morally acceptable practises.
Worthwhile addition to a 2 day old thread no one is responding too.
Delivering accurate search results is highly desirable but not at the expense of personal privacy.
Can you deliver accurate (read personalized?) results without knowing something about you? Neither Apple nor Google thinks so, and I'm not sure I disagree.
It's clear that spammers work around their search algorithms to hit the top rankings and Google seems to have no ethics when it boils down to where the money is coming from. As long as it keeps rolling in, it gives them the opportunity to do other things they see as right such as funding alternative energy resources.
They do seem to block malicious sites from their search results as soon as they're aware of them. They also change their search algorithm whenever it's clear that the system is being gamed.
However, like a hooker selling her body to put her kid through college, once you compromise on your base ethics, you've already taken a step too far. Many people are guilty of this when it comes to advertising though and marketing people are among some of the most amoral people you'll ever meet. This is pretty much Google's main source of revenue so evil is inevitably present.
Every businessman I know looks at ethics from a different viewpoint than regular consumers. Is it ethical to imply an untruth in an ad as long as you don't outright lie? Is it ethical to knowingly cherry-pick statistics to make your product appear more desirable than it may truly be, or make the competition look less worthy? Is it ethical to fail to disclose facts that that might be detrimental to your business or lawsuit? Ask 50 people these questions and you're unlikely to get the same response to each.
The love of money is a root of evil but the financial services we live by are designed in such a way that we have no choice but to support them - this design is no accident. It is possible to operate a profitable business without horribly compromising your ethics as Apple seems to do but few companies can hope to match this success because not all business models have the same margins from morally acceptable practises.
Except that Apple is so secretive, I'm not sure we know how "ethical" they are. Going by their public face, they look tame. But then so does Google. It's what's going on behind the scenes, and what each is willing to do, say, or overlook to get to their desired goals that's going to impact us all.
Can you deliver accurate (read personalized?) results without knowing something about you? Neither Apple nor Google thinks so, and I'm not sure I disagree.
There's a balance and I can see it tipping too far towards the Facebook-style of finding out every single information link that exists. If I visit a website that brings up profiles of people that I've known decades ago but have never put any meaningful online link explicitly, that kinda creeps me out a bit. As long as Google stick to the IP location and some sort of anonymous profiling, that I'm ok with. Their movements into the more social side could be quite invasive when it comes to things like targeted advertising. I never want to see a Google ad that says "So your mate seems to have tweeted about you being off work today. How about some Immodium?". I think Google is only +1 step away from this.
They do seem to block malicious sites from their search results as soon as they're aware of them. They also change their search algorithm whenever it's clear that the system is being gamed.
They don't do enough. The spam we get on this forum shows up in the highest up rankings in Google and it gets spammed everywhere. Google has done nothing to make the practise of spamming unrewarding, which is why people still do it. You can see carefully formatted landing pages everywhere that conform to a certain template designed to improve rankings.
Except that Apple is so secretive, I'm not sure we know how "ethical" they are. Going by their public face, they look tame. But then so does Google. It's what's going on behind the scenes, and what each is willing to do, say, or overlook to get to their desired goals that's going to impact us all.
Yeah, Apple could be hiding something like selling music purchasing trends on to the music industry to know how best to manipulate manufactured pop music for the largest audience or any number of other things. Denying warranty repairs for the highest store profits. We would never know and I have no doubt that a company with tens of thousands of employees will have some element of malicious intent but their core business is not inherently linked with advertising and worse, a specific type of advertising.
Apple will advertise why their products are good, Google's advertising isn't like this comparative advertising, it's just about volume. How many views, how many clicks. In no way does this represent the value of the product itself. They could be selling machines to skin kittens for their fur. If the advertiser gets enough links and pays enough for ads, up it goes in Google - they will obviously filter offensive content but you get the idea.