[12] Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out", adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent".
"[9][16] In their 2004 founders' letter[17] prior to their initial public offering, Larry Page and Sergey Brin argued that their "Don't be evil" culture prohibited conflicts of interest, and required objectivity and an absence of bias: Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others.
[18] However, he observed that clearly separating search results from sponsored links is required by law, thus, Google's practice had since become mainstream and was no longer remarkable or good.
Because we have forgotten the original context of Google’s evil representations, the company should remind the public of the company’s contribution to a revolution in search advertising, and highlight some overlooked benefits of their model.In a 2013 NPR interview, Eric Schmidt revealed that when Larry Page and Sergey Brin recommended the motto as a guiding principle for Google, he "thought this was the stupidest rule ever", but then changed his opinion after a meeting where an engineer successfully referred to the motto when expressing concerns about a planned advertising product, which was eventually cancelled.
[31][32] In the same year, major social networks even co-developed a Don't be evil browser bookmarklet (specifically to expose alleged SERP manipulation promoting Google-owned content over that of others).
[33] On May 16th, 2013 Margaret Hodge MP, the chair of the United Kingdom Public Accounts Committee, accused Google of being "calculated and unethical" over its use of highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in corporation tax owed by its UK operations.
[36] Google's alleged uses of multi-platform mass surveillance,[37] search engine results and other technologies to politically censor content visibility,[38][39] manipulate public opinion,[40] sway elections and develop weapons[41][42] triggered new protests under the former motto.
- plaintiffs' lawyer, Laurie Burgess[46]The trio circulated a petition calling on Google to publicly commit to not working with the CBP.
Rather than admit that their stance had changed and lose the accompanying benefits to the company image, Google fired employees who were living the motto.