Google vs. Evil

wideangle writes "'The world's biggest, best-loved search engine owes its success to supreme technology and a simple rule: Don't be evil. Now the geek icon is finding that moral compromise is just the cost of doing big business. Take Brin's decision to refuse all alcohol and tobacco advertising. The fact that Google accepts advertising for adult content sites is an intriguing commentary on Brin's morality: Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not. It's a policy that would become progressively harder to defend were Google to go public.'"

Comments

It makes sense

[SteweyGriffin]

Alcohol and cigarettes kill people.

Pornography does not.

Re:It makes sense

[garcia]

also along those lines... Typically pornography isn't intentionally, directly, marketed towards children. Alcohol and tobacco is.

Re:It makes sense

[pVoid]

On a funny note,

Porn is religiously 'evil', whereas cigarettes aren't.

Go figure.

Re:It makes sense

[mskfisher]

Actually, Christians are instructed that their body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit," and that we're not to defile it.
Smoking, or other destructive behavior, is disrespect and defilement.
Here are some other references and reasons.

Re:It makes sense

[kernelistic]

Mind you, Christianity is not the only religion which states that you're not to defile the body: The Hindus and Muslims have this very same belief.

Re:It makes sense

[241comp]

The verse you are referring to is:
1 Corinthians 6:19 - Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

What most people forget is the verse before that which states:
1 Corinthians 6:18 - Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
Which clearly states that the verse following it refers ONLY to sexual sins, not smoking/drinking/drugs/etc.

Re:It makes sense

[registro]

Well, alcohol and tobacco advertising is illegal now in most democracies, including most of the EU, Internet biggest market, so I guess they are all right: they agree with the mayority of a 300+ million union, good enought for a One Person World View.

After reading the article, I must said that I think Brin is all right. Lets hope he have the streng to resist commercialization's dark side. They have showed signs of weakness recently, anly partially corrected now.

Re:It makes sense

[Danse]

Yea, I know, very small % do the bomb thing, but... *shrug* those people are the most devout.

Not the most devout, just the most manipulated. And it's not like "devout" christians haven't committed some truly horrible attrocities over the centuries either. Religion is a powerful tool. When it's abused, it can cause incredible suffering.

Re:It makes sense

[ReaperOfSouls]

Nothing in the world makes people do more insane and idiotic things, then the belief that their invisible man in the sky is more right and valid then your invisible man in the sky...

Re:It makes sense

[Pseudonym]

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Almost every atrocity which you would attribute to religion is in fact traceable to greed and/or politics. This is partly a function of poor separation of church and state. If church and state are blurred, the church gets blamed for everything the state does.

Re:It makes sense

[Pseudonym]

I don't claim to attribute anything to religion.

Here's what you said:

Nothing in the world makes people do more insane and idiotic things [...]

Which part did I misinterpret?

Religion is no different than any other philosophy or, "predating the modern age" as you say, any other societal norm. People do insane and idiotic things. Religion doesn't make anyone this way, they just are.

Not to mention their wacky gun policy.

[rebelcool]

Not only do they refuse to advertise for guns, but they won't advertise companies that even sell parts for guns.

To be even stranger, the advertisements are usually not even about guns - just the company may happen to also sell parts.

One case comes to mind of an outdoorsman shop wanted to advertise its dehydrated food wares. In addition to hundreds of other outdoors materials, they sold replacement pistol barrels (they did NOT however, sell actual guns)

Google refused the ads on food on the premise of this.

I agree.

[PineGreen]

Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not.

It is pretty hard fact that cigarettes and booze are evil as far as health is concerned. However, porn is evil only as much as ideology / morality flags it as evil.

Personally, I would legalise all kinds of drugs, however the advertising should remain limited.

And yes, call me funny, but I just love to pull my stick and can't possibly see how porn could be evil.

Re:I agree.

[vbweenie]

Porn has, and to some extent is, its own ideology; like other ideologies, it plugs a hole in the world with a fantasy version of the thing it's supposedly "about", in which everything works more or less exactly the way it doesn't in reality.

Religious fundamentalism is fantasy politics, in which real and intractable arguments about morality and justice get to be solved by looking them up in the user guide. Porno is fantasy gender politics, in which real and intractable difficulties in the matter of relations between the sexes get resolved...well, you know how.

This doesn't make porno evil as such; at least, not for the conventional reasons. But it does make it ethically deviant, insofar as ethical reasoning depends on a willingness to try to see the world as it is. Porno claims to present the naked truth: all the naughty secrets that the puritan sex cops want to keep secret and veiled. But porno is, like advertising, a kind of systematic untruth, perpetuated for cynical reasons, and whatever that is it ain't good.

Re:I agree.

[namespan]

It is pretty hard fact that cigarettes and booze are evil as far as health is concerned. However, porn is evil only as much as ideology / morality flags it as evil.

First off, most of the posts here on Slashdot seem to be missing the point. It doesn't matter whether any of the above are evil under your idealogy. What does matter about Google is that despite the extra revenue it might provide, they've chosen to incorporate their moral beliefs into a business they've created. They have some beliefs that are higher than the mighty dollar. The submittor almost seems to question this, and insinuates a public businesses doesn't have this luxury, and the sum of its morality is return to shareholders. Frankly, that meme more evil than porn, alcohol, and cigarrettes combined. Once your values are completely based on financial return, the commission of some kind of crime (legal and/or moral) is pretty much inevitable, because there's just so many good ways to make money by screwing others over.

I personally think that porn can distort reality and hurt people and it's a substitute for things that could legitimately fill human needs/desires. I side with Bill Cosby's statement that it's more than a little word -- when you feel hungry, do you go and look at pictures of steak? Videos of people eating pizza? Carefully teasing you with glimpses of halibut, people making satisfied noises while in the throes of a sublime burritto? But my judgement of porn or substance abuse is not really the point of this whole discussion. If you built a business, and believed that porn was an evil, I'd hope that you'd incorporate that belief into the operation of the organization you create -- same goes with guns, marijuana, tobacco, bibles, scientology, Nietsche, Quake, Nethack, whatever. The guys running google have moral beliefs, and they're willing to stand for them despite financial incentives to the contrary. How can that be anything but good?

Alcohol and Cigarettes and harmful

[danny256]

porn is not. We all look at porn, no matter how much you guys deny it. I found my first porn on yahoo when I was 11 years old and I havn't stopped. I don't think I'm too screwed up, or any more so than if I'd never found the porn. How many kids get through there childhood without one of their friends showing them a dirty magazine or something? not too many, its a just a part of life. Porn isn't evil, just like masturbation isn't evil, I think these are outdated views that need to be revised.

Re:Alcohol and Cigarettes and harmful

[div_2n]

Alcohol in and of itself is not bad for you. The abuse of it, however, is bad for you.

If the fact that too much alcohol is can damage your health means that it is harmful then you might as well add food, oxygen, water, exercise, sexual orgasms, sunlight and sleep.

Too much of any good thing can and usually is a bad thing.

Re:Alcohol and Cigarettes and harmful

[trentfoley]

When I was a little kid in the late 60's, my dad gave me a big stack of Playboy magazines. It turned out that my mom had made him get rid of the them. He got in serious trouble when my mom found out that I had the collection. I wish I still had them -- they'd be worth a lot of money (they were all clean).

Am I screwed up? Yes, but not because of porn.

if you want to filter..

[gl4ss]

..do your own front end to google and filter for all your hearts content. http://www.google.com/apis/

it's fun and geeky to play around too..
the free key allows up to 1000 searches/person per day using googleapi..

i experimented with it to filter out some linkfarm-sht-sites while looking for *cough*roms. happily the same authors linkfarm sites shared quite a bit of content(and linked to eachother of course)..

Well....

[mindstrm]

Not everyone sees porn as "Evil".. that's largely a puritanical American ideal.

Re:Well....

[Dog and Pony]

Only reason it has such impact there (and in other places)is that noone really wants to risk being not politically correct first.

Also, see the recent events in France where the politicians, when proposing laws against prostitution, were faced with the ultimatum from the hookers: "If you do that, we will tell everyone what you have done, with personal details and even how small your penis is."

I have no reason to believe that this kind of double morality would not be common everywhere else where it is pc to say that porn is bad.

Activism

[Skyshadow]

Not only do they refuse to advertise for guns, but they won't advertise companies that even sell parts for guns.

1. People who created, run and privately own Google think guns are bad.
2. Google won't advertise guns.
3. Outdoor shops who do a little gun-related bid'ness are enticed to get rid of it.
4. There is one less place to buy parts for things used to kill other people.
5. Google still makes profit, society gets a little more like creators, maintainers and private owners of Google want it to be.

Kudos to them, then, for standing behind their beliefs.

Re:Activism

[Skyshadow]

Would you be saying that if, for example, it was Islam they didn't like rather than guns?

It'd be in their perogative (again, it's their world, we just play in it), but I don't think it'd have any useful effect -- what, is the Dome of the Rock going to suddenly go secular because they can't advertise on Google?

Look, I take great pleasure in going to the shooting range and exercising my second-amendment rights. I also don't kid myself about what I'm doing, what the purpose of the tools really is and why I enjoy it so much. Guns are like cigarettes and booze in that way -- they're a real viceral thrill, and they're not a really good thing in the long haul.

Re:Activism

[Wyatt Earp]

"Guns are like cigarettes and booze in that way -- they're a real viceral thrill, and they're not a really good thing in the long haul."

Well, the Resistance in France, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union really thought guns were helpful against the Nazis. The Viet Cong used them to good effect against the French, Japanese, Americans and Republic of Vietnam. In 1989 guns were quite helpful dealing with Nicolae Ceausescu.

Guns helped the SAS and Norwegian Resistance in stopping the Nazi heavy-water production.

http://www.uh.edu/~dbarclay/rm/stats.htm
"Every year, more than 2,400,000 people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals-or more than 6,500 people a day. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.

Of the 2,400,000 self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.
(C) Of the 2,400,000 times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, 92 percent merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8 percent of the time, does a citizen kill or wound his or her attacker."

Re:Activism

[ONOIML8]

1. People who created, run and privately own Google think guns are bad.

Cool, everyone has an opinion.

2. Google won't advertise guns.

Ok, fine.

3. Outdoor shops who do a little gun-related bid'ness are enticed to get rid of it.

Really? Just because Google wont carry their ads? How is that?

Time-Warner won't carry ads for porn sites but I belive those business are doing quite well and do not feel enticed to eliminate porn from thier business. They just find other ways to advertise that do not involve that company. Time-Warner's doesn't get their revenue but the do get to stick to their policy.

4. There is one less place to buy parts for things used to kill other people.

Several problems with that theory. First is the assumption that if a company doesn't advertise on Google they can't do business. Advertising on Google is not such an important thing that it will determine if a gun parts business remains profitable.

Another problem with your theory is the fact that most guns are not used to kill people.

Assuming your theory were correct it would also mean that there were fewer parts available for guns to defend people.

Cars kill more people everyday than do guns. Google still advertises companies who sell car parts.

Please rethink your theory.

5. Google still makes profit, society gets a little more like creators, maintainers and private owners of Google want it to be.

Google still makes profit, that's a good thing. Standing up for what they believe in is a good thing. They set an example and that is a good thing.

But I think you overestimate their impact on society. Google is important, and they do have an impact. But if Google went away, or people use another service, it doesn't harm society. Despite what they may tell you they just aren't that important.

Re:Activism

[Catbeller]

Guns were useful agaisnt the Nazis, but think about it. Could the SS and the gas ovens been stopped by brave French equipped with hunting rifles?

Nope. It took diplomats. Generals. Bombs, planes, tanks, ships, codebreakers, balloons, radar, submarines, atomic bombs.

Guns were an expression of resistance, but they would not have won WWII against a German or Japanese empire. It took the intelligent cooperation of tens of millions of soldiers with all the resources of dozens of nations to stomp out a few determinted, self-righteous, God-appointed we're-doing-it-for-self-defense looney bin countries that convinced themselves they were only doing the right thing by attacking everyone else preemptively.

No gun in the hands of a citizen, or a million citizens, can "defend freedom". They can fire a few rounds off before the tanks and armored soldiers roll over their families and houses, or before they see a cruise missle go down their chimney, or a tailored virus is released into their water supplies. The era of the brave lone warriors never existed. It doesn't exist now. It's a fantasy.

If the U.S. government goes rogue under some pretext (such as the terrorist one), and they start doing things like, oh, detaining people in the dark of night, or executing citizens without trial, and everyone goes "Yay! We are safe!", no pile of Uzis under our beds will buy us freedom.

Oh, um. If everyone carries a gun, or has one in the house, the first order of business for any robber or attacker is to kill the victim on sight. The attacker almost always wins if they have the gun out and hit you by surprise. I've heard in many cases that muggers, for instance, in highly armed neighborhoods will shoot the victim first off, because it's almost a certainty the victim is carrying blade or gun.

Do *I* want guns banned? I don't think they can be banned. It'd be worse than Prohibition, and at least booze drinkers weren't drinking a killing machine when the police broke in.

But I don't think the guns are going to save us from the bad man, or a government gone insane. Only careful monitoring of our guvmint can save us from the latter -- and we're not monitoring -- and as for the bad men, they will always be with us.

Since google isn't publicly held...

[hillct]

The owners can set whatever policies they see fit. It is, of course in their interest to set policies that do not alienate their userbase, and do not drive away advertisers. Given google's past success, it's reasonable to assume these sorts of considerations play into all their business decisions.

Specifically, on the issue of accepting ads for adult content, this is reasonable in the specific case of a search engine and especially in the case of google's AdWords mechanism, because the users who will see the ads for adult content, will only be those who are specifically searching for adult content. Google has been quite successful with their targeted advertising program, which makes it all the more valuable to it's niche advertisers such as adult content providers. So long as the ads are effectively targeted to users who are currently viewing search results containing sited having such content, ads for similar content shouldn't be an issue.

--CTH

Google != Porn

[Znonymous Coward]

Who in the heck uses Google to find porn?

Newsgroups and P2P are the geeks porn engines >:)

Re:Google != Porn

[NineNine]

I can tell you that thousands of people at least find my site daily! And let me tell ya', if you can get your porn site in good with Google, well, let's just say that money won't ever be a problem again.

Values

[Z0mb1eman]

I am still amazed by the north american values that sex and nudity are BAD, and should be kept away from children at any cost, whereas violence is not...

Interesting article nonetheless, and fairly balanced. Seems Brin is using something that's in short supply nowadays - common sense. And there is (surprise surprise) a reference to Slashdot as well. To all those who generally just read the article summary and start posting, do read the article this time - it's fairly long, but it's worth it.

Maybe I'm just jaded..

[RaboKrabekian]

Maybe i'm jsu jaded, but I always thought that evil would always triumph because good is dumb.

Ever seen a porn ad on Google?

[miu]

The fact that the default SafeSearch setting prevents these ads from showing up seems reasonable.

Other Search Engines

[dirkdidit]

Last time I checked(it's been a few months), Excite would not have advertisements on their site having to do with alcohol and tobacco but gladly had porn adverts on search results(those search results had something to do with porn). So how is what Google doing any different than Excite? Or TV for that matter. You rarely see alcohol ads and never tobacco ads anymore. But go on late night TV and you'll see ads for all sorts of Adult Phone Services and for different Adult Videos. Personally, I think Google is just following the mainstream.

What Google and investors in it should think about

[Todd Knarr]

Google isn't successful because it's Google. It's successful because lots and lots of people like what it's doing now, the way it's doing it now. If you change too much of that in the search for profits you'll change the reason people prefer to use it, and they'll go somewhere else that does do what they prefer. And there goes the very source of your success and revenue: the users you attract.

If you want to invest in a successful company but think it needs to be changed significantly, ask yourself why you aren't investing in a successful company that already works the way you think it should. If that's because all the companies that work the way you think they should aren't successful, maybe it's what you think that should change, not what the successful company is.

Advertising not a problem

[Ed Avis]

I don't really care what advertising they choose to accept, because ads on Google are clearly identified as such. If they choose to lose income by not accepting advertising for certain products, that's their business. I'm much more concerned about the search results started being tainted by either paid placements or Scientology-style censorship.

Re:With all due respect

[pbur]

The only thing I disagree with you there is having to be raised "with religion" to be a good person. I don't buy it. As long as your parents taught you decent morals, you don *have* to have to religion to be a good person.

Hard to defend a logical morality?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two groups of people in this world when it comes to morals.

One group "gets" their morality from "God". They say all morals are determined by a supreme omnipotent being, and without him, there is no morality. In other words, you cannot be a moral person without God.

A second group of people (the group that the Google guys likely belong to) believe that morals are simply unwritten rules that govern interactions between people. If there was only one person on the planet, there would be no need for morality. Their morality is usually determined by reason and logic. For instance, it's wrong to kill people (most of the time) because a society with rampant murder has less ability to advance than a society with no murder.

Many morals overlap with laws, but that does not mean that all morals should be made into laws. Murder is both usually immoral and illegal, but cutting in a line is immoral and not illegal.

The reason not all morals should be laws is simple. Those people who belong to group #1 have morals that have no basis in logic or reason, and their sole support is a being for which they have no evidence exists, and have no support that the "moral" indeed came from this being. In other words, the 1st Amendment protects us from this... Thanks Founding Fathers!

If you belong to group #2, it's hard to come up with a reason that porn is immoral. For porn to be immoral there must be something immoral with sex... I suppose one could argue that rampant sex could spread disease and hurt a society in the long run... but I don't really see how that applies to porn.

The Reagan administration told the NSF to do a study on how porn hurts kids. After 4 years of research, the panel told the administration that it is not porn that hurts children, it is our societies illogical, irrational, and puritanical views on sex that hurts kids. Just as there is little alcoholism in countries where wine is served to children and it becomes a normal part of life, there would be no harm to children if sex was not so taboo. Oh, by the way, Reagan threw the study out and commissioned a PRIEST to redo it. Not surprisingly, the Priest said porn hurts kids... and his "study" took less than a month.

In summary, it is quite easy to defend group #2's "scientific morality"... while it is certainly not as absolute as group #1's, as it needs to change as new evidence appears, it is far more likely to be the right thing to do.

Re:With all due respect

[dissy]

That is the nice thing about freedom.
Goodgles CEO can decide what they want to do and not do, and you get to decide if you aggree or not and use them or someone else.

The KKK websites are most likely run in a way that would favour linking to sites about similar topics and refuse to link to pages not about the topics they want and deem 'right'.

That is their choice.

Just like its my choice to not go to their website ever.

Take away googles freedom to make this choice, and you have also taken away your freedom to choose _not_ to view sites such as the KKK's or anyone elses.

That isnt something I want.

Re:I will evaluate this from a lover's perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is a pornography addict, always buying a new DVD when we travel and she sees a new shop of adult toys. We don't really make love anymore, it's just sex.
Can I have her email address?

Moral dilemmas

[teutonic_leech]

Isn't it time for us to come down our moral high horse and take refreshed look at what/who we are demonizing in our 'modern' culture? Things are so topsy-turfy especially in the U.S. media landscape one can't help but be bewildered sometimes. Violence is mostly okay - how many times there are guns being fired at people during PG-13 rated TV shows? Some blood may flow, but if some bimbo reveals one of her private parts, then we file it under 'dirty' and it'll get cut. What's the big deal about exposing the human body in its original form? Obviously sex is a daily routine on our planet which has allowed us to grow our population to over 6 billion (despite countless wars and numerous forms of genocite). Little kids grow up among many negative influences including but not limited to: beatings, lying cheating, verbal abuse, agression, road rage, Duke Nukem, Super Mario Bros. etc.. Why in the world is sex and nudity labelled as 'dirty'? It's time to relinquish those antiquated religious artifacts and enter the 21st century.

The PROOF that google is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is evil!

**** THE PROOF THAT google IS EVIL ****

G O O G L E
7 15 15 7 12 5 - as numbers
7 6 6 7 3 5 - digits added
\_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_____/
7 6 6 7 8 - digits added

Thus, "google" is 76678.

Turn the number backwards, and add 111 - the only triplet that can ever be prime. The number is now 87778.

Subtract 1181, the year UFO was first observed in China and Japan. The result will be 86597.

Turn the number backwards, and add 1970 - the year IBM announced S/370. The number is now 81538.

Add 12 to it - this is the symbol of the greater sin, written backwards - you will get 81550.

Turn the number backwards, subtract 1977 - the year Elvis left the planet. The number is now 3541.

This number, read as octal, gives 1889 - the year Adolf Hitler was born.

This is truly evil. QED.

Re:The PROOF that google is evil

[AndrewRUK]

There's a better proof of google's evilness.

Counting from the start of the alphabet, we can assign the letters of the name 'Google' the numbers:
G o o g l e
7 15 15 7 12 5
which, when added together, total 61.
Now, we can also assign numbers to the letters from their ascii codes, thus:
G o o g l e
71 111 111 103 108 101
which sum to 605.
Combining these two numerical representations of 'Google', we get 605 + 61 = 666!!!
Google is the devil!!!!

Re:With all due respect

[OAB]

With all due respect - READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE

This is about ads, not the index.

Your post sounds good at first, but upon deeper exploration you'll see that it's:

a.) Childish
b.) Poorly thought-out
c.) Discriminatory
d.) A disservice to Internet users

Cigs/Booze vs Pr0n

[E-Rock-23]

It's not hard to figure out his reasoning here. Cigs and Booze are choices that people make at the ages of 18 and 21 respectively. Both can hurt you immensely (cancer anyone?).

Now, porn on the other hand, isn't a choice made at a certain age. Sex is a part of life. And while it can hurt you (STDs, Early Age Pregnancy, Child Support, etc.), it's not likely going to kill you. Sex is part of human instinct. Every species on the planet is born with the intuition to further itself through breeding. The only reason sex is considered "evil" in the mainstream is because of Religious Zealots who want you to think it's a sin.

It looks like it's just a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. If Google were to go public, I'd buy, porn or no porn. It'd just be a sound investment. I'm a big user of Google, as many other people are, I'm sure (well, those who change their default search from MSN to Google, anyway).

Should there be a GNU-Google?

[abe ferlman]

I have depended quite a bit on google for a while. They have succeeded so far in not being evil for the most part.

But a good search engine is such a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the internet- is it really wise to continue to depend on a company that makes no promises that tomorrow they won't start charging $100/month subscription to their service and patent-attack any competitors who get too successful?

Clearly my example, although possible, is far fetched. But I feel good using Gnu-Linux because RMS, Linus and others have promised, via the GPL, not to take it away. Can/should google or one of its competitors make a similar promise?

Re:Should there be a GNU-Google?

[dissy]

You can buy a rackmount machine with the google software on it from google.

They market these to companys for search engines just for their site, but obviously you could configure it however you please.

http://www.google.com/appliance/index.html
(Or click Search Solutions link on their main page)

Granted this isnt just the software, but it proves there is no need to rely on googles configuration or hardware if you dont want to.

Something to look into atleast :)

It's Google's decision

[orthogonal]

I don't care what Google will or will not advertise; it's Google's site, it's Google's decision.

(Myself, I wouldn't advertise sugary children's cereals, although I enjoy Sugar-Bombs, booze, smokes, and tasteful images of goats getting it on.)

I would care if Google were censoring or slanting search results.

(Yes, I'm aware they've removed certain links after being compelled by law suit; as i understand, Google's results also make it clear when that's happened.)

Re:With all due respect

[Angram]

Sorry, but that's not very well thought out. There is nothing childish about sticking to your morals. Anyone who compromises their morals and ethics for profic is someone I don't trust. If the CEO is a racist, I'd like to know it. I decide where I spend my money, and given the choice of pockets, I'd give it to the guy whose morals I agree with. Oh, and what the hell are you basing your 'Brin can/will become a racist' point on? What's the difference, anyway? If he becomes a racist, then change. You can't go around not trusting people because of what they can or might do. Cynicism is fine, but not when you make it so extreme.

You say you can't trust someone for being honest? That's preposterous. Would you do business with a lying money whore?

I have long said that there is nothing worse than a lie, and I stand by it. If you're a racist, I'd rather know it than have you keep it secret. If you want me dead, let me know, then at least I can defend myself.

"Poorly though-out" is the definition of your comments. I choose to do business with people who are honest and stick to their guns. I may not agree with Howard Stern, et al., but at least they say what they think, and don't change to make more money.

The biggest issue I have with your post is actually one that most people overlook. You list "without religion" in your list of 'evil' traits. It's no secret that religion has nothing to do with morality. Atheists are no more 'evil' than priests, rabbis, or any other religious folk. Your statement is a prejudiced one, and one that I don't agree with. But again, I'm happier having heard it, because it lets me get a clearer picture of you and your mind. I can easily tell, by that statement alone, that you aren't my kind of person. I'm honest, I'm atheist, and I'm moralistic (The Pierce Code). Deal with it. Religion isn't all it's cracked up to be, and your point isn't either.

First porn on Yahoo!?!?

[StringBlade]

...Now I feel old. My first porn required the use of a 2400bps modem, a local BBS, and a pilfered (or fraudulent) login and password.

Must publically held mean no morals?

[jerryasher]

There is this (Milton Friedman I believe) argument that public companies must only do the most profitable thing for their investors.

More and more as companies grow from small to large, they must sacrifice the moral visions of their founders and early years to always take on the next most profitable venture.

Paraphrased, "It is better for investors to give their money to the charity of their choice than for a company to do that for them."

Screw long term environmental projects and the better return and new (and better?) opportunities for the company. Go for the short term payoff. Screw long term employee productivity and how that can add to the bottom line. Go for hard working, miserable, short term employees. Go for CEO to avg wage ratios of over 400.

When Sergey Brin says no to meta-tags in 1999, that is controversial but visionary. When Sergey Brin says no to cigarette ads, that is controversial and offensive to the free market.

And we wonder how the CEO/CFO/board became so disconnected and downright corrupt?

It's Milton Friedman and this chain of logic, that begins by saying that public companies should have no morals other than make the most money in the quickest time.

Scr*w you Milt and your Nob Hill apartment.

Thank you Sergey Brin, and even, thank you Bill Gates (tenuous reach?): for creating companies that have definite personalities, and definite moral stances (though you and I may not agree with all of them.)

Re:

[mao che minh]

The only moral objections against pornography comes from certain religious belief systems or cultural taboos. Humans procreate in order to further the species, there is nothing wrong with enjoying that act, partaking in it as much as possible (responsibly), or by glorifying it.

My statement excludes Japanese porn, of course. I don't mind watching an attractive and nimble Asian lady take it from behind while partially wearing a Catholic school girl's uniform, I just hate the part when the octopus demon slithers on screen and takes a dump on her forehead. There is something very wrong with that.

Google, and corporate responsibility,

[Minupla]

Google, as a privately owned company has as much right to hold an opinion as I do. While I might not agree with every decision (and I don't) they've ever made, I applaud that they have the courage to do so. If more companies had the courage of their convictions, the corporate landscape would have a lot less festering swamps, in my opinion, and maybe we'd have had a couple less Enrons.

It's also worth pointing out that they understand that their decisions implicate a world stage. Google isn't a mom and pop store on mainstreet, small town USA. They have a large chunk of the world looking at them, and understand that with that power, comes responsibility. I don't see any evidence that they have used that power irresponsably yet.

Evil is Just Fine for Google

[PissingInTheWind]

Searched the web for evil.
Results 1 - 10 of about 10,400,000.
Search took 0.10 seconds.

I surrender.

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be stopped. Moderators are truely idiots. You have posted almost non-stop for three days karma whoring, google trolling (whoever came up with that term should be commended) and baiting like crazy and continue to be modded up, no matter what. You've probably been capped by now. I don't know if you've bribed an editor or what, but man...

So, this is my last time (other ACs feel free) - hey everyone, SteweyGriffin is none other than ekrout, a known troll who often contradicts his own statements in the same thread, whores fans to have a large pool of moderators who see him at a +? score, trolls and will undoubtedly sweep the trollback for the weekend (links under his other posts can be found, including his post that proudly shows his reply and moderation amounts - look here you fools (wow - never noticed that the sid for trolltalk was 31337... that's funny). Stop modding him up. Or don't, I don't care anymore. Color me impressed, I surrender.

Re:I will evaluate this from a lover's perspective

[dissy]

Seems this is the first serious reply to your post so far.. So hope it is taken with more seriousness than the previous ones.

While i aggree in part with your post, there are things that just seem wrong from the way you projected your opinions.

Porn can be bad if it is used as a teacher.
Porn itself is not bad.

For example, porn as a teacher is bad for, among other reasons:

* It teaches that women arnt beautiful unless they have D +breast and/or implants, and that they need to shave their public hair to be attractive.
Both of those are quailitys i personally hate, and feel a woman should do to her body what SHE wants, not what she feels everyone else wants.

* It teaches that sex is over once the man has an oragasm, and that female oragams isnt importaint at all.

* It teaches that foreplay is only used as preperation for intercourse, not as a source of pleasure or as a equal part of love making.

* It teaches that you must be limited in the sexual acts you can do, namley only the things done in porn, and nothing else is OK.

So if a person learns about sex from porn, and nothing else, of _course_ they will be a horible lover.

Being a good lover requires learning about your partner, what they like, what they dont like, and responding to their needs while at the same time they are doing the same to you.

My question to you is, did you try to teach your wife yourself how to be a good lover as well?

If not, then its no wonder she is how she is, and you have no room to complain about it. TEACH HER!

If so, then I would question your teaching methods, your communication with her, or possibly her love (Read: concern) about you.

I have met women who were horible lovers, but I did my best to teach them otherwise, and in most cases did so very well.

But dont blame porn for teaching poor love making anymore than you should blame the internet or TV for being a poor babysitter.
That isnt what they are for at all. But that doesnt mean they dont have good uses and still have a place in the world.

Re:NAMBLA

[GoldDog]

[thing-about-NAMBLA] You can search for it on Google and surely enough, it's right there on the top. So what does this say about Sergey Brin?

Not much. It says more about you and your reasoning.
This is about ads and making choices about who to sell them to.
I don't see google actually blocking searches for booze,guns and tobacco, they just choose not to sell adspace to those industries.

They also index sites concerning rape, murder, war, hate crimes and a lot of other generally considered evils. But they don't sell ads for them.

Your argument is a logical fallacy and detrimental to the discussion. You are the weakest link, goodbye =)

Re:I will evaluate this from a lover's perspective

[NineNine]

But keep in mind that your wife is a tiny, tiny minority. People also get addicted to shopping, video games, you name it. You can't just start censoring everything that a few people get unhealthily addicted to. Just because your wife has a problem (or maybe you just don't do it for her?), doesn't mean that millions of sexually healthy people should also be deprived of porn. Most sex therapists say that porn in completely healthy and normal for most relationships.

Re:Porn isn't really benign

[EllF]

You know, as a liberal, I find the idea that I'm supposedly so weak-willed that I can't look at Bad Things without being "changed" against my will really offensive, or that anyone should have the right to change what I have access to under the pretense of acting in my interests.

Guess what? I have a mind of my own, just as the women who decide to do pornography do. Some of them do it because of their financial or social circumstances, some do it by choice. Neither the producers nor the consumers of pornographic material are doing something inherently wrong in interacting with the porno industry. There may be instances of wrongdoing, but they do not mean that every piece of porno is somehow terrible.

Censorship is Evil

[ONOIML8]

"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil."

Evil, says /. poster ONOIML8, is censorship. Be it by government, religious cult group, or privately held company in the "information technology" business.

Yes, you may quote me on that.

Slowdot.org?

[s88]

Why can I now read the stories posted on /. weeks earlier in paper form? Isn't the point of digital news, that is should be faster than print? I read this story early last week in my magazine subscription, delivered by snail mail.

Well...atleast I will be able to read it again next week when it is duped.

Sigh,
Scott

Google and Decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite understand why people are upset over how google acted in the cases of scientology and China. I must admit I like that the link goes to a page which arguably not only provides the site, but wakes up people to how slimey those people are. That's an elegant solution. As for China, they altered their hardware, not googles. Google didn't do anything. It is not google's job to fight China on internet freedom. That is not their purpose. China has to resolve that issue itself - not wanting links visible is just a symptom of the larger problem.

People, companies are not set up to fight ideological wars, no matter how justified. They are supposed to produce good products and market them fairly. They should adhere to standards about what type of characters they deal with and how their workers are treated to avoid being guilty of crimes themselves, but it is not their job to reform foreign governments or support political revolutions. They control their conduct, not others conduct. If China wants to block google that is China's business. If people don't want China to do that then raise the issue directly and fight, but don't try to use google as a way to sneak things in under the radar. They aren't a weapon in this battle, they are just a company doing their job, and it is not in their interest to invite conflict over ideological issues. So far the result has been quite impressive technically, and while I believe they should have made Europe do the filtering on their servers it's understandable that they don't want to antagonize their customers. Don't make google out to be something it's not. If you want to fight oppression than form or join a group for that purpose - that's not what business is for. They should not support the practice, but it is not their job to be activists.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Google's choice

[dh003i]

I disagree with their decision, but it's their decision to make -- not mine.

Google is a private company. They can make whatever assinite decisions they want to make. If they wanted to, they should be able to only hire white people over 6 feet ball with goatees. Their decision.

Is it absurd? Yes. Is it something Google should be prevented from doing? No.

They don't like guns, alcohol, and tobacco. Fine. It's their right not to have those kinds of ads on their site, or allow ads from companies which also make guns or gun parts. They like porn, so they put up ads for that.

I disagree, however, with someone elses characterization that geeks like porn. Geeks like free porn. I don't think most geeks -- especially the paranoid kind -- like porn you have to pay for with credit card, or porn that says its "free" but wants your credit-card number just to "make sure you're 21". I agree with that. I'm not going to pay for porn. I can find it for free using google images or news-groups; if I look hard enough, I can even find a few free porn websites. I also don't like porno-advertising pop-ups or banners, so I block them with my hosts. It'll be a cold day in hell before I pay $20/month to get something online that I could look at in real life for free.

Don't know if it's just their morals...

[snol]

How many ads for cigarettes and booze do you typically see online? Not that many compared to the amount you see for porn. You can't transmit alcohol and smokes over data connections, and most people are too impatient to wait for their liquor to be FedExed. Probably google would lose a lot more revenue by ditching porn ads than they have for cigs/alcohol.

What about Scientology?

[tregoweth]

Accepting ads for Scientology seems like helping Evil.

Nothing to gain by taking Google public

[Fastball]

Google is a shining example of why private companies are typically better in every respect than public companies. First, there's only so much stock the buying public hungers for. Second, private companies are far less dependent on growth to survive; they can focus on what they do whereas public companies constantly have to look for ways to generate revenue. Third, choices private companies make based on their own philosophies and culture are typically less scrutinized than those that public companies make, and this is good.

I don't want stock. I want a search engine. Anything that preserves that is a Good Thing. As soon as you have shareholders to answer to, you're ideas are owned.

Re:"Moral" problems are often the commenter's

[Xeger]

A discussion of porn and society wouldn't be complete without mention of Japan.

Japanese porn is plentiful, sold almost anywhere magazines are sold. It's also quite pervereted by Western standards. Themes of violence against women, nonconsenting sex with school girls, and domination are quite common. It's perfectly acceptable to read rape-themed manga (comic books) on the subway.

Yet, across the board, crime rates in Japan are much lower than in America.

Defense of Brin's morality

[naasking]

Take Brin's decision to refuse all alcohol and tobacco advertising. The fact that Google accepts advertising for adult content sites is an intriguing commentary on Brin's morality: Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not. It's a policy that would become progressively harder to defend were Google to go public.

Cigarettes and alcohol harm and often kill people (more so the innocent bystanders than the abusers). Porn does neither. Do you want me to draw you a picture?

The Evils or Pornography

[Jayson]

There have been two commission to study pornography: 1970 and 1986. The 1970 Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography concluded that there was insuffient evidence to prove a link between the exposured to sexually explicit material and criminal behavior. This is not even close to what you claim: that the commission found pornography harmless. However, the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography came to the opposite conclusion, claiming that the available pornography at the time caused different levels of harm.

The reason these two commission disagreed was largly to do with what they were studying. Pornography changed drastically between 1970 and 1986. In 1970 full frontal nudity was a rarity while in 1986 close-ups of anatomy were common and visible penetration could be found in hard-core magazines at adult stores. The 1970 commission was also railed on for failing to research violent pornography. By 1996 this research hole was filled and the findings were that it led to agression against women (in laboratory test conditions) and the acceptance of the rape myth that women secretly want it.

Later in 1986, a Surgeon General's Workshop on Pornography and Public Health met and found that "pronography does stimulate attitudes and behavior that lead to gravely negative consequences for individuals and society."

Since 1986 numerous meta-studies has supported the Surgeon General findings too. A 1994 meta-study titled "A Systematic Review of the Effects of Aggressive and Nonagressive Pornography" included 81 original studies, a 1995 meta-study "A Meta-ananysis Summerizing the Effects of Pornography" included 33 original studies, another 1995 study "Exposure to Pornography and Acceptance of Rape Myths" included 24 orignial studies all support that violent and non-violent pornography increase the likelihood of rape, sexual callousness, violence, and violent attitudes towards women. Even stepping outside the US, a study in 1989 by the Canadian government comes to the same conclusion, saying that after viewing pornography men were twice as likely to rape women after viewing pornography.

In 1989 "Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations," by Zillerman and Bryant, found that over a period of time viewing pornography are "at a greater risk of becoming callous" towards women.

In "Pornography's Effects on Adults and Children" Dr. Victor Cline of the University of Utah delineates four phases of pornography addiction: addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out.

Since mainstream pornography has become more hard-core the preponderence of evidence is that it does adversely effect our behavior.

[This has been taken from excepts from an article that I am currently writing for Kuro5hin.org, but it will not be done for a few months, until I have some more time to spend at the library.]

Simply explained

[Zone-MR]

Google was created as a reasearch project by one of the most reputable universities in the world.

Though tobacco users won't admit it, great academic minds will rarely agree with the concept of smoking.

However, find me a student who sees something wrong with porn...

Google icon

[Banjonardo]

We need a google icon. This is like the third google-related story in a week.

Huh?

[MenTaLguY]

Some minor corrections...

1. There is no "Book of David" in the Bible
2. Bathsheba was not related to (King) David at all
3. "religious" prostitutes, while common in neighboring cultures, were forbidden in Israel
4. There was no temple in Israel at that time; they used a tent (the Tabernacle)

The real story isn't exactly "family values", but that's the point. It's about how David screwed up big time.

The actual story's in II Samuel 11-12:

1. David stays home from battle one weekend.
2. He sees Bathsheba bathing from the roof of his palace, and after a bit of voyeurism gets one of his servants to bring her to the palace.
3. Guess.
4. Oh. Did I mention she's married? Her husband Uriah's off fighting in David's army.
5. Oh, crap. She's pregnant.
6. David calls Uriah back and tells him he's done a great job fighting, and he should come back home and spend some quality time with his wife. Make it look like it could be Uriah's kid.
7. Uriah refuses, since it's unfair to the rest of the guys in the army.
8. David sends Uriah back to the front lines, and David tells General Joab (David's cousin) to make sure that Uriah doesn't come back.
9. Joab dies. David marries Bathsheba.
10. God is not happy.
11. God sends Nathan the Prophet to tell David off.
12. Nathan tells David a story about this guy who stole a sheep. The story sounds sounds strangely familiar.
13. David: "What a dick! The guy should be put to death... and... er... wait a minute..."
14. Nathan: "Yeah, and you killed some guy and stole his WIFE. What do you think God's going to do to YOU now?"

God does forgive David when David sincerely repents, but He still makes David deal with the (pretty nasty) consequences of this whole episode for the rest of his life (and explicitly forbids David from building a temple).

The point being that even someone in a position of authority isn't magically allowed to do what he wants with people.

Moral Authority

[MarvinMouse]

*sigh*

I know I am going to get killed for saying this... but here we go...

Who decides what is effectively the moral authority. In my personal opinion the only reason the bible exists and other "moral authorities" exist is because people don't want to take it upon themselves to make the hard decisions as to what is right and what is wrong. If a person can blame his decisions on a book, person, church, etc. that's even better, because he never has to take it upon himself to accept when what he did is actually wrong.

Well, here's the reality check people... Let's remove everything that you need to have "faith" in to believe, and reduce it to what the real world is. There is no more afterlife, there is no more God, nothing, let's say all of that is wrong (not saying I believe that.) What do we have... well, we have the world as you experience it right now. Your decisions are judged almost solely by you, if you feel bad after doing something, that is because you feel it is wrong, not because some book tells you so. If you don't feel bad, then you don't feel it's wrong... Wow, simple, eh?

Now, how's this for a reality check. You do something, then you evaluate the "morality" of it, based on what you feel is right or wrong. Now, if you feel guilty, than to you it is morally wrong (even though to someone else it may not be.)

Okay, so now we have a theory of morals that works with an individual, lets work with a group.

Now, let's say for example that a person feels killing is not morally wrong, yet overall the group disagrees. What happens, well the group will in someway punish the person who is harming the good of the group. Thus, the person will feel wrong about what he did because he knows he'll be punished. (this is for those people who need rewards and punishments to do things.)

So, what do we create. We create a "Moral Structure" in which the person need not be immediately punished to fear doing something that overall the group considers wrong... What is this... this sounds like religion... hey.. That's odd..

Something to ponder. (and by no means is this a complete thesis of my ideas... I'll probably write about it in my journal sometime.)