Google, Good or Evil?

[shakir]

Google is giving very good service for browsers. Its make rich many peoples and give lots of information. So google is not only good its very good and the best

[kevalin]

Bit of both.... Have you seen their new marketing ploy to get exposure for Grandcentral.com, which is a company they purchased last year. They are giving all San Francisco homeless a free voicemail for life. Everyone who has a computer, homeless or not, can get the service.

In order to get messages, a homeless person would need to find a pay phone, and pay the charge to get their messages, if there is no messages the homeless person just spent money for nothing. The other options is to have them log on to a computer and check it online. So when money is hard thing to come by for people, I don't see them spending money at a pay phone to check messages on a daily or weekly basis. I also don't see them finding a computer to check their messages either.

I like the idea behind it where people can stay in touch with possible employers and to get medical updates from a hospital, but it's just not feasible for 90% + of the homeless people so I would venture to say it was just an evil marketing ploy to get exposure for the Google service.

Just my thoughts....

Overall I love the Google search, and there push for making technology and software free for the masses.
Good article to read about Google innovation and why they do this.

[Atom]

Good.

Most people aren't webmasters.

[Atom]

One thing that kind of bothers me though, is that they needed to steal for their content.

[Atom]

I demand reparations.

[jeffnova]

Google good, DMOZ bad

[robpongi]

Google is not perfect, but, then, this is not a perfect world either.

On the other hand though, remember, very recently, Microsoft was convicted by the European Commission in that "it illegally bundled Windows Media Player with Windows and used its desktop monopoly to get unfair advantage in the workgroup server market."

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/conte...rt_defeat.html

Therefore, Microsoft, was, in fact, judged "guilty" by the Court of First Instance of the European Commission in Semptember 2007.

And, yes, Google has been sued more than a few times, but only in civil court, and not in criminal court. This is a very big difference between these two giant companies. And, sure, Google has many very high ideals about itself and what it hopes to do and they like to try to get away with as much as they can, of course and I would too if I had such a huge company to work with and, of course, like Google, I would also maintain operations within the limits of the law as much as possible. And, the key point here is that Google has never committed a criminal act of any kind. However, Microsoft did so and they were found guilty of that act and they are still guilty and forever will be, so, therefore, they are a criminal organization.

[John Scott]

The judgment against MS for bundling is just stupid. Anti-capitalist, socialist, and stupid.

[kevalin]

Google is better then Microsoft in my opinion, and between the two companies, if I had a company for sell I would rather have it owned by Google, then Microsoft. Personally I believe Google will be around much longer then Microsoft.

Just a matter of time before Google buys out a company that removes the use of a full Operating system on a computer. Who knows, they may be able to improve Google Apps fast enough to do this in the very near future. Right now Vmware and various other OS are still not efficient enough to run beast programs like Adobe, Cad, and of course the true test of a computer, the games such as all the MMORPGS that are out there.

Only a matter of time before their cash cows, Windows + Office, stops producing as much profits that they have become accustomed to. I think Microsoft realizes this is a very real issue, and is desperately scrambling for a new money making product and service to get them into the web 2.0 and then web 3.0 which is just starting.

[gridsix]

[link removed]

Thoughts?

Maybe an ad network co-op would be more realistic?

[robpongi]

Well, personally, I see any judgement against Microsoft in any court of law as a home run for humanity. And, of course, I agree that the bundling decision may have seemed trivial, but you know for sure that Microsoft committed much, much worse acts of deception, anti-trust, intellectual copyright infringement, consumer and corporate fraud, racketeering, price fixing, and much, much more. Also, its well known that they have driven many smaller companies bankrupt by their illicit and illegal acts of non-disclosure, deception, and unfair trade practices etc. etc.

Well, IMHO, I really believe that both the US and European court judges wanted to nail them for any or all of the above, but it would have taken far too long and cost too much to wage a decades-long court war. So, instead, they just convicted Microsoft of all that they could within a reasonable amount of time and capital expenditure. And, for sure, you know Microsoft would have loved to have gone for the long haul as it would've ended up like IBM's thirty two (32) year anti-trust case and all charges against Miscrosoft would have eventually been dropped as technology would have advanced and all long-term cases' charges against them would have become irrelevant and also the government(s) would have eventually run out of legal fees budgets to keep their charges against Microsoft active in the courts.

And the US courts really wanted to nail Microsoft for IE, but they ended up dropping it as they knew it would have cost much more than they could afford. So, instead, the European Commission got them for what they could as fast as they could. And trivial or not, I'm glad they got convicted and I hope there are more serious charges brought against them in the future and they very well may be. We'll just have to wait and see.

[John Scott]

And, of course, I agree that the bundling decision may have seemed trivial, but you know for sure that Microsoft committed much, much worse acts of deception, anti-trust, intellectual copyright infringement, consumer and corporate fraud, racketeering, price fixing, and much, much more.

You sound like a raving anti-capitalist.

Humanity? Microsoft has done more for humanity than any anti-trust court.

Corporate fraud? I don't see it.

Some people just hate to see a company succeed on their merits.

[witchdocda]

Google rocks!!!

[robpongi]

SEC slaps Microsoft for books

Via SFGate.com

Henry Norr, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 4, 2002

Capping a three-year investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday ordered Microsoft to abandon accounting practices that the agency said led to misrepresentations of the software giant's financial results from 1995 to 1998.

The Redmond, Wash., company consented to the order without admitting or denying the SEC findings. The commission did not accuse it of fraud and did not impose a fine or even require restatement of Microsoft's results for the period covered.

The settlement comes as the agency faces mounting pressure from Congress and investors to tighten oversight of corporate accounting in the wake of Enron's bankruptcy.

Microsoft was charged not with exaggerating its income, but with underreporting it. Specifically, the dispute concerned seven corporate reserve accounts totaling between $200 million and $900 million during the years in question.

They were created in an apparent attempt to set aside funds that could be drawn upon to boost company income in lean years -- a practice known as "cookie-jar accounting."

The commission found that the practice violated generally accepted accounting principles as well as Microsoft's own standard procedures. It charged that the reserves were not substantiated by the kinds of facts and analysis federal securities laws require.

In fact, according to the order, "the documentation created by Microsoft either did not adequately explain the basis for any of the corporate reserves or adjustments made to those accounts, or indicated that they were impermissible."

Unnamed "senior Microsoft financial personnel," the order said, "relied upon their undocumented, subjective judgment rather than factual analysis or statistics in establishing and adjusting the corporate reserve accounts."

In a statement announcing the settlement, SEC enforcement director Stephen Cutler said, "This case emphasizes that the Commission will act against a public company that issues financial statements with material inaccuracies, even in the absence of fraud charges."

The SEC opened twice as many probes into corporate financial reporting in the first quarter of this year as in the same period last year.

SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt recused himself from the commission vote to approve the order because he represented Deloitte & Touche, Microsoft's accountants, while in private practice. Commissioners Isaac Hunt and Cynthia Glassman voted for the order. The two remaining seats on the five-member board are currently vacant.

"While this isn't a particularly strong penalty, I think this is the best we could get" in the absence of evidence of fraud, Hunt said.

Microsoft shares closed Monday at $49.42, down $1.49 or almost 3 percent. The stock has declined more than 25 percent since the beginning of this year.

Well, the above was not called actual "fraud" but it was pretty close to it, indeed.

And, don't worry I'm not a raving anti-capitalist, I'm a raving Miscosoft-certified SE who knows far too well, that there is a better way and I believe, or, at least "hope", that we will soon see this with the Google GDrive but it may take much longer than expected as, apparently, there have been many problems with that project's development.

[robpongi]

Also, I just found this earlier this morning and now MIT has a beta "GDrive" system up called Dropbox.

[John Scott]

Microsoft was charged not with exaggerating its income, but with underreporting it.

*Applauding MS*

[Hafsoh]

Good.... being the the best Search Engine!! but not so good for most webmasters

[arale1]

my idea, good for searching, evil for adsense. I have got blocked many times without invalid clicks, they just block, thats all, you cant do anything!

[full house]

I think it depends, there are sites that doesn't succeed in google thats why its evil for them.

[stacy131]

Surprisingly, considering the monopoly that Google has been, it has been quite good. I do think that as it further slips ahead of its competitors, it will become evil. Just look at eBay and the greedy graveyard they have become. I hope that Google doesn't follow that path, but monopolies tend to do that.

I just wish Google would give newer sites a better opportunity. Just because your site is older doesn't mean that it's the best. In fact, older sites tend not to put a lot of effort because of their high SERPs. I know in my niche at least that is the case.