npwsol - 8:59 pm on Jun 12, 2008 (gmt 0)

Yes, it's amazing how much semantics actually does matter.

Andy - While I certainly agree that relativism can only be taken so far, given the need for social interaction and thus social ethics. I say social ethics for a reason; I always interpret morality to be personal, whereas ethics are a silenting agreed upon code for interacting with one another.

Still I argue that relative morality applies in this case. When Google takes action, they will take action based on the relative morality of its employees involved in the decision making, and more importantly their collaborated ethics. If we disagree with their decision, we should foster debate and raise our concerns with Google. Again, what is the problem, and why is it a problem? The statement "Don't be evil." is something we should use to our advantage in dealing with Google, because Google is big and getting bigger; as we all know, when a company gets big it sometimes gets lost. The statement is vague and it is placed somewhere concrete, where we're not likely to see it go missing, and in this regard it is beautiful. I don't know if it's what they're trying to do, but we can't let them walk away from it.

If people feel Google is being evil, what actions do they consider evil? Why are those actions evil? Who are those actions affecting? Then, if the consensus is that the actions are evil, how can it be fixed?

Follow Google's example of how they implement Don't be evil and use it. But I guess that requires people to be able to debate and agree, which requires maturity. Could we start a thread on this and get away with it? Or would it turn into a flame war? WebmasterWorld is more mature than any of the other communities I've interacted with...