Google’s informal corporate motto is “Don’t be evil.”
I’ll repeat that: Don’t be evil.
I stress this because the motto is one of those phrases that gets exaggerated given some time to circulate in the community. Most frequently it’s twisted into “Do no evil.” It’s like Kanye’s famous quote that he never said, “George Bush hates black people,” and Darth Vader’s ever-popular unquote, “Luke, I am your father.”
In Google’s recent purchase of Etherpad, a lot of people got nervous. They called foul since Google was violating their own nonexistent corporate policy of “Do no evil.” They weren’t. One can do evil and still not be evil, given the right mixtures. If Gandhi had kicked a kitten at some point in his life, I’m sure we’d all still consider him an alright guy.
Google themselves have commented on this, back in 2006 when they tangled with Chinese censorship. Schmidt said they put together an evil scale to make sure they were still in the clear, and that not serving China at all would be a greater evil.
Now it’s a moot point, of course, since Google has decided to open-source Etherpad instead of completely crushing the project.
But still, let’s remember to hold Google to the standards they actually espouse, and not the ones that we make up.