Google About Openness

sopssa writes "Several sites, including TechCrunch and The Register, are reporting about an email Google's VP Jonathan Rosenberg sent to employees on Monday about the meaning of open. 'At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. ... Our goal is to keep the Internet open, which promotes choice and competition and keeps users and developers from getting locked in.' But are we likely to see Google open their search engine, advertising or the famous back-end system? In their words, that would mean Google and other companies would need to work harder and innovate more to keep their users, for everyone's benefit."

Comments

Re:Data liberation

[schon]

I cannot trust them because in the United States a public corporation is required by law, first and foremost, to do what is in the best interests of shareholders which generally means anything which legally maximizes profits.

So what you're saying is that you don't trust them because you have no idea what the law actually says, or how corporations actually work?

Your name wouldn't happen to be Kyle Mortensen would it?

A publicly-traded company is required to maximize shareholder value in accordance with its prospectus.

Before a company goes public, it produces a prospectus. The prospectus details the business plan of the company, as well as its philosophy and self-imposed restrictions. It is the responsibility of the investor to read and understand the prospectus before investing. If the prospectus states that the company will place customer loyalty above short-term profit, then any lawsuit based on "the company didn't maximize short-term profit because they weren't pricks to their customers" will fail.

HTH.