"Trust Us?" Can We Still Take Google at Its Word? Which One?
About the time when Google was actively evading the Senate’s invitation to testify before the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee, Google published a blog post about “the principles that have guided us from the beginning.”
The five principles are:
- Do what’s best for the user.
- Provide the most relevant answers as quickly as possible.
- Label advertisements clearly.
- Be transparent.
- Loyalty, not lock-in.
These principles led us to wonder if we can we take Google at its word?
And if so, which one?
Take for example that while Google has said above all else, “do what’s best for the user,” while Google founders have said “advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”
Huh?!
Here’s a look at what Google executives have said about these principles in the past.