 |
Global Edition | Today Is Friday, March 12, 2010 |
|---|
|
Global Edition | Today Is Friday, March 12, 2010 |
|---|
| The Google Conundrum: Freedom’s Choke Point | « Scan Content In The Order It Was Published » | Masters of the Business Apocalypse | |
| Previous In Section | « Scan Only The Online Section » | ||
Will Tomorrow's Google Users Be Free?
From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user experience possible. While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site:
Google is a good company doing bad things.
In our research for The Google Conundrum: Freedoms Choke Point, we uncovered a great deal about Google’s conundrum: The company is seemingly well intentioned, its management competent, its leadership strong. But none of these good qualities gave Google either the clarity of understanding or the courage to do something of immense importance to the free world, but not very good for its own ambitions or desire to maintain its power and market share.
More on Google
By the time we finished work on the Choke Point essay we came to realize that Google is no different from CitiBank, or Lehman Brothers, or AIG, or General Motors. American businesses today are largely bereft of ethics and values, our great universities grant degrees in how to game the system and juke the stats, and Wall street rewards those who make money no matter how they do so. If these things are true, as we now know they are in most if not all G-8 nations, was it fair to attack what Google was doing in China without indicting business in general?
The answer to that question is yes, for what the Bank of America did to our nation, and what General Motors did to American manufacturing only impacted our economic well being — not our freedoms or the power of other nations.
There is a similarity in Google’s decision to accept and embrace the censorship demands of tyrants and dictators to how Standard and Poors chose to rate junk securities as AAA grade investments. Both decisions were made to benefit corporate interests at the expense of others while claiming to be ethical, responsible and transparent.
What’s different about Google, and its failing ethical compass, is that its decisions potentially impact everyone on Earth.
What was so consuming and so vitally important to Google that would warrant abdicating its founders strong stand on doing the right thing — no matter its temporal or expedient benefits? And when it was done, Google was so self satisfied that it had juked the system and made its decision appear somehow logical that it still claims what it choose to do in China was business as usual.
From its inception Google sought to be ethical, to place the user’s interests above its own, to be transparent, to serve the needs of its users over its own interests, to deliver listings that are complete, reliable and competent.
Its founder’s concepts were powerful affirmations about the importance and value of information and ideas. Where did these ideas go? Why was Google so easily seduced by the same gatekeeper powers they originally sought to vanquish? We don’t know those answers today. What we do know is that Google has been largely dismissive toward criticism of its China policies. Their decision to go along to get along in China runs counter to their founder’s lofty principles. How come, we wondered? Then, long after reading Marissa Mayer’s business is business explanation concerning the reasonableness of Google’s decision to remove materials found to be sensitive to China’s dictators, two lines still rang in our ears:
So where we have to remove results, we note on the bottom of the page that we’ve removed results. And we only remove results in the event that there’s a particular page that has been deemed illegal due to its content in a particular area.
We believe Ms. Mayer’s words to be reflective of Google’s corporate policy since they were uttered in her role as a senior vice president. If her worlds, or our analysis of Google’s public philosophy statement do not fairly and accurately reflect Google’s position, Google is invited to reply. Should such a reply be offered, it will be reproduced unexpurgated in the same format and given the same front page visibility as afforded our own coverage of these issues.
Google’s search system returned a rich collection of Google corporate materials including a statement of philosophy and “Ten Things Google Has Found To Be True.” We thought these materials worthy of probative examination and logical analysis. The document below may be found in its original format at the link given. The editor’s comments are our analysis of how Google’s words measure-up in the real world beyond Google’s Mountain View headquarters.
Google is responsible for what they say and Newsroom Magazine publisher Robert Butche is responsible for the Editors Comments framed in blue.
Google Philosophy Statement
Our Philosophy
Never settle for the best “The perfect search engine,” says Google co-founder Larry Page, “would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.” Given the state of search technology today, that’s a far-reaching vision requiring research, development and innovation to realize. Google is committed to blazing that trail. Though acknowledged as the world’s leading search technology company, Google’s goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek information, whether they’re at a desk in Boston, driving through Bonn, or strolling in Bangkok.
Editors Comment
Google says it has set out to achieve Page and Brin’s lofty and worthy goals. To some degree, their record of achievement demonstrates that they accept the founder’s challenge to understand what the user wants and to give him what he expects.
To that end, Google has persistently pursued innovation and pushed the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use search service that can be accessed from anywhere. To fully understand Google, it’s helpful to understand all the ways in which the company has helped to redefine how individuals, businesses and technologists view the Internet.
Editors Comment
Google’s claim that they have pushed the limits of technology is accurate. So is the claim that Google’s service is fast and easy to use. Google’s ability to do these things has made them the worldwide leader in search engines. The lofty and worthy goals need to be further developed, their potential acknowledged and their benefits to the user identified. While giving back the user exactly what he wants goes without further exhortation, Google redefines its purpose and goals for their benefit, not the user’s by specifically seeking to achieve a search service that can be accessed from anywhere.
Being accessed from anywhere is a commercial goal, not a user goal. Understanding what the user wants is a user oriented goal and so is giving him what he expects. Google’s conundrum today is that its stated goals have come into conflict with its own self interests — and that when made to do so, Google chose to serve its own best interests not those of the users as identified by the co-founders.
Here’s the logic: For Google to be in China it had to agree to abide by Chinese laws. Abiding by Chinese laws, which restrict the flow of information, Google had to define a new set of goals in China.
Thus Google’s goals would be more accurately stated as:
The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you want and give back exactly what your government permits.”
Given the state of search technology today, that’s a far-reaching vision requiring research, development and innovation to realize. Google is committed to blazing that trail. Though acknowledged as the world’s leading search technology company, Google’s goal is to provide a much lower level of service to Chinese users who seek information, whether they’re at a desk in Beijing, driving through Shanghai, or strolling in Hong Kong.
What Google has said is that being available everywhere is what really matters and that their lofty goals and ideals are dear to them only as long as they don’t cost anything.
Ten things Google has found to be true
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow. From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user experience possible. While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site:
Editors Comment
It’s evident that Google has focused upon and achieved an excellent user experience, but their claim that they put their customers first is untrue to the extent that they do not treat all users equally.
The claim that Google resists temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value is made untrue by having made major sacrifices to trade fidelity-to-fact to achieve commercial access.
Their claim that “Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site:” is at variance to fact and thereby untrue.
- The interface is clear and simple.
- Pages load instantly.
- Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
- Advertising on the site must offer relevant content and not be a distraction.
By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web. And that growth has come not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.
Editors Comment
Based on credible and probative reports, this claim would best be brought into conformance with fact if it read,
“By always placing the interests of the user first, as long as doing so is consistent with Google’s best interests, or those of host governments, local laws, or advertisers, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web.”
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well. Google does search. With one of the world’s largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well, and how we could do it better. Through continued iteration on difficult problems, we’ve been able to solve complex issues and provide continuous improvements to a service already considered the best on the web at making finding information a fast and seamless experience for millions of users. Our dedication to improving search has also allowed us to apply what we’ve learned to new products, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Maps. As we continue to build new products* while making search better, our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.
Editors Comment
While this claim is congratulatory and flattering, it is also largely true. Google does search and very well. It does have a substantial and ongoing development effort in search engine technology as well as in other ares of potential commercial interest. And, among all the search engines, Google has excelled at solving difficult problems and finding new ways to find information.
3. Fast is better than slow. Google believes in instant gratification. You want answers and you want them right now. Who are we to argue? Google may be the only company in the world whose stated goal is to have users leave its website as quickly as possible. By fanatically obsessing on shaving every excess bit and byte from our pages and increasing the efficiency of our serving environment, Google has broken its own speed records time and again. Others assumed large servers were the fastest way to handle massive amounts of data. Google found networked PCs to be faster. Where others accepted apparent speed limits imposed by search algorithms, Google wrote new algorithms that proved there were no limits. And Google continues to work on making it all go even faster.
Editors Comment
Google is as fast, or faster than its competition. It is more reliable, and its distributed PC technology has proven to be the most efficient.
Google’s claim that it continues to work on making all of its services better is fact.
4. Democracy on the web works. Google works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting websites to determine which other sites offer content of value. Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the frequency with which certain terms appear, Google ranks every web page using a breakthrough technique called PageRank™. PageRank evaluates all of the sites linking to a web page and assigns them a value, based in part on the sites linking to them. By analyzing the full structure of the web, Google is able to determine which sites have been “voted” the best sources of information by those most interested in the information they offer. This technique actually improves as the web gets bigger, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted.
Editors Comment
Google’s claims for PageRank remain unproven in terms of its long term value to indexing services.
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer. The world is increasingly mobile and unwilling to be constrained to a fixed location. Whether it’s through their PDAs, their wireless phones or even their automobiles, people want information to come to them. Google’s innovations in this area include Google Number Search, which reduces the number of keypad strokes required to find data from a web-enabled cellular phone and an on-the-fly translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format that can be read by phone browsers. This system opens up billions of pages for viewing from devices that would otherwise not be able to display them, including Palm PDAs and Japanese i-mode, J-Sky, and EZWeb devices. Wherever search is likely to help users obtain the information they seek, Google is pioneering new technologies and offering new solutions.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
Editors Comment
Google’s claims concerning its ongoing innovation in compression, interface migration and other information delivery and display features, are fact.
Google is a business. The revenue the company generates is derived from offering its search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on Google and on other sites across the web. However, you may have never seen an ad on Google. That’s because Google does not allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they’re relevant to the results page on which they’re shown. So, only certain searches produce sponsored links above or to the right of the results. Google firmly believes that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what you wish to find. Google has also proven that advertising can be effective without being flashy. Google does not accept pop-up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you’ve requested. We’ve found that text ads (AdWords) that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher clickthrough rates than ads appearing randomly. Google’s maximization group works with advertisers to improve clickthrough rates over the life of a campaign, because high clickthrough rates are an indication that ads are relevant to a user’s interests. Any advertiser, no matter how small or how large, can take advantage of this highly targeted medium, whether through our self-service advertising program that puts ads online within minutes, or with the assistance of a Google advertising representative. Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a “Sponsored Link.” It is a core value for Google that there be no compromising of the integrity of our results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results. No one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust Google’s objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust. Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote their products; we believe AdWords is the largest program of its kind. In addition, thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.
Editors Comment
Google’s claims concerning the value, methods and restraints of its AdWords service are factual though somewhat overstated — both of which are common in corporate writing.
No commercial enterprise can survive without revenue. Up to this point, the demands of advertisers have not subsumed Google’s somewhat self-righteous claims of propriety.
Every other big media company long ago gave up any semblance of favoring viewer/reader interests over advertisers. With so much money at stake, Google is surely to be tested.
7. There’s always more information out there. Once Google had indexed more of the HTML pages on the Internet than any other search service, our engineers turned their attention to information that was not as readily accessible. Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases, such as adding a phone number and address lookup and a business directory. Other efforts required a bit more creativity, like adding the ability to search billions of images and a way to view pages that were originally created as PDF files. The popularity of PDF results led us to expand the list of file types searched to include documents produced in a dozen formats such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. For wireless users, Google developed a unique way to translate HTML formatted files into a format that could be read by mobile devices. The list is not likely to end there as Google’s researchers continue looking into ways to bring all the world’s information to users seeking answers.
Editors Comment
Google’s continuing commitment to expanding its indexing and reporting service is fact — and one of the principal contributors to its enduring success.
8. The need for information crosses all borders. Though Google is headquartered in California, our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, so we have offices around the globe. To that end we maintain dozens of Internet domains and serve more than half of our results to users living outside the United States. Google search results can be restricted to pages written in more than 35 languages according to a user’s preference. We also offer a translation feature to make content available to users regardless of their native tongue and for those who prefer not to search in English, Google’s interface can be customized into more than 100 languages. To accelerate the addition of new languages, Google offers volunteers the opportunity to help in the translation through an automated tool available on the Google.com website. This process has greatly improved both the variety and quality of service we’re able to offer users in even the most far flung corners of the globe.
Editors Comment
Google’s translation services leave much to be desired, for while their language breadth is the largest, Google’s translation methods remain limited in accuracy compared to more traditional and more costly means of translation. Google publishes no standards for using their language tools, restricts users, limits the number of translations requested, bans legitimate users who’s readers demand pages in multiple languages, and provides no support or means of interaction between publishers and language service personnel.
9. You can be serious without a suit. Google’s founders have often stated that the company is not serious about anything but search. They built a company around the idea that work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun. To that end, Google’s culture is unlike any in corporate America, and it’s not because of the ubiquitous lava lamps and large rubber balls, or the fact that the company’s chef used to cook for the Grateful Dead. In the same way Google puts users first when it comes to our online service, Google Inc. puts employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex headquarters. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to the company’s overall success. Ideas are traded, tested and put into practice with an alacrity that can be dizzying. Meetings that would take hours elsewhere are frequently little more than a conversation in line for lunch and few walls separate those who write the code from those who write the checks. This highly communicative environment fosters a productivity and camaraderie fueled by the realization that millions of people rely on Google results. Give the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a difference, and they will.
Editors Comment
Google is clearly a great company to work for.
10. Great just isn’t good enough. Always deliver more than expected. Google does not accept being the best as an endpoint, but a starting point. Through innovation and iteration, Google takes something that works well and improves upon it in unexpected ways. Search works well for properly spelled words, but what about typos? One engineer saw a need and created a spell checker that seems to read a user’s mind. It takes too long to search from a WAP phone? Our wireless group developed Google Number Search to reduce entries from three keystrokes per letter to one. With a user base in the millions, Google is able to identify points of friction quickly and smooth them out. Google’s point of distinction however, is anticipating needs not yet articulated by our global audience, then meeting them with products and services that set new standards. This constant dissatisfaction with the way things are is ultimately the driving force behind the world’s best search engine.
Editors Comment
Google’s aspirations are clear, well articulated and motivating.
They get high marks for having achieved so many of their goals and for living up to most, but not all of their good intentions.
* Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these “10 things” four years ago, we included the phrase “Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat.” Over time we’ve expanded our view of the range of services we can offer –- web search, for instance, isn’t the only way for people to access or use information -– and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio. This doesn’t mean we’ve changed our core mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).
