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What Does Google Mean by "Evil"? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

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Pretty much ever since Paul Buchheit suggested “Don’t be evil” as a corporate values statement (and Amit Patel begun writing it on whiteboards around the office), any time Google does something people don’t like, they begin calling it “evil” and complaining that Google is violating its prime directive. But surely “evil” means something more than just “wrong” or “bad”. If the girl across the street peers through your window to watch you undress, we might say that was bad and wrong and awful, but I don’t think anyone would try to claim it was evil. Evil is a really strong term! Now part of the joke is that Google seems to be using it rather loosely. If you look at their examples of evil deeds, they seem rather mundane compared to cackling supervillains and mass murderers. They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results. Hardly the stuff of comic books. But what do these three have in common? They’re all

What Does Google Mean by "Evil"? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought) Raw Thought by Aaron Swartz What Does Google Mean by “Evil”? Pretty much ever since Paul Buchheit suggested “Don’t be evil” as a corporate values statement (and Amit Patel begun writing it on whiteboards around the office), any time Google does something people don’t like, they begin calling it “evil” and complaining that Google is violating its prime directive. But surely “evil” means something more than just “wrong” or “bad”. If the girl across the

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