Google

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Chapter 10: Google: The Drive to Balance Privacy with Profit: 10-5 Privacy Book Title: Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases Printed By: Toure Williams ([email protected]) © 2019 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

10-5 Privacy Being a large company, Google has many risks and ethical issues it must constantly address. In many ways Google has helped advance ethical conduct in the web and technology industries. Google has been named multiple times among Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies due to its contributions to the community and the environment. The company also consistently ranks among Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work for because of its fun and innovative work environment.

One of the greatest risks faced by digital companies involves hacking attacks and online scams. Google is attempting to address these risks head on. In 2017, for example, Google was hit with a massive phishing attack. Gmail users were sent an email that supposedly came from someone they knew inviting them to open up a document in Google Docs. Those that clicked on the link were directed to a real Google page, where they were asked to input their passwords to download a fraudulent app. Once the fraudsters had the users’ credentials, they used them to access the users’ contact lists to send out more phishing emails. Google immediately reacted to disable the accounts and notify its Gmail users.

Despite its contributions to ethics, Google has been accused of questionable activities. For instance, Google’s announcement that it would be digitizing the collections of several prominent libraries and making them available online through Google Books sparked outrage from publishers who still owned the copyrights. Google only made books fully available for works in the public domain—for books still within copyright, just small snippets could be viewed—but the Author’s Guild sued Google over it, arguing the arrangement was without the permission of its members and violated their copyrights. Google eventually won that fight, with a judge ruling that Google’s actions fell under fair use of copyrighted material.

Google has also faced intense antitrust scrutiny from the European community. Competitors in Europe claim Google uses its dominant market position to promote its own offerings and demote rival results in search listings. In 2010 the European Union (EU) began investigating Google’s practices. Google proposed concessions and business changes it was willing to make to satisfy competitors and investigators, but none were accepted, and the EU announced formal charges against Google in 2015. The initial charge was that Google favors its comparison-shopping service over competitors. The EU later filed another antitrust charge against Google targeting its AdSense advertising platform. These accusations are similar to the EU’s investigation into Microsoft, which eventually led to $2.3 billion in fines and significant changes in how Microsoft conducted business worldwide. In 2017 the EU fined Google a record $2.7 billion for violating antitrust laws.

For the sake of brevity, this case will focus on one major ethical issue Google has continually wrestled with as it seeks to expand its reach: privacy. The advent of the Internet

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and mobile technology provides so many opportunities for stakeholders that many do not realize the cost for this information might be significant portions of their privacy. Many consumers are shocked to find that web companies such as Google and Facebook track their online activity and use this information to tailor advertisements or sell to marketers. Other consumers feel that Google’s use of their personal information is a small price to pay in exchange for access to the company’s superior services. For Google—which offers so much free content and gets most of its revenue from advertising—this information is extremely valuable to its continued business success. Google’s privacy policy details what information it collects and how it uses that information. For instance, Google claims it may share non-personal information with its partners.

Despite Google’s attempts to be transparent, there are ethical gray areas regarding the collection and use of data. Because there is still little legislation regulating how Internet companies gather and employ user information, it is tempting for firms to push the limits on privacy. Going too far, however, creates reputational and legal problems. Google has sometimes appeared to take a cavalier attitude toward privacy. For instance, former CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted as saying, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” In 2007 Google was given a “hostile to privacy” rating by watchdog organization Privacy International. Although Google is the most popular search engine, one poll found that 52 percent of Google users have concerns about their privacy when using it. This could be a potential obstacle for Google since consumer trust plays a big role in how they interact with a company. The following sections discuss some of the major privacy issues Google has experienced.

Chapter 10: Google: The Drive to Balance Privacy with Profit: 10-5 Privacy Book Title: Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases Printed By: Toure Williams ([email protected]) © 2019 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

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