By Christopher Mims
Everybody's got to grow up sometime. For Alphabet Inc.'s Google,
that transition from youthful idealism to crusty, middle-age
realism is in full swing.
The latest evidence of Google's pragmatic side is its Dragonfly
project, a version of its search engine that would conform to
China's strict censorship, so that Google can bring search back to
that country after abandoning it in 2010. But this is hardly the
first example of Google's "Don't be evil" approach morphing into
something more like "Get real." (Even that famous motto has been
downgraded in the company's latest code of conduct.)
In the past year, Google's leadership had to rapidly backpedal
from the company's attempt to work with the Department of Defense
on projects to enhance weapons targeting -- and the decision to
back out met with criticism as well. The company also recently
found itself defending its practice of tracking users who have
switched off "location services," as well as its apparent lack of
policing of developers who are granted access to users' Gmail
accounts.
In addition to provoking the public and lawmakers, these
business practices have inspired pushback from the company's own
employees -- leading to a nonstop and often rancorous debate -- and
threatened Google's ability to recruit top talent.
Google's critics, external and internal, warn that diverging
from its idealistic mission could lead to more-unethical use of its
powerful technology. If the company doesn't manage its priorities
right, both its customers' and employees' willingness to trust it
could erode, threatening its growth.
"When you start with an ethical, mission-driven company and take
out the ethics, that's a problem," says Tiffany C. Li, an expert in
technology law and a resident fellow at Yale Law School's
Information Society Project.
"If Google builds a censored search engine in China, other
countries can ask for this," says Ms. Li. A Google that is
complicit with laws that don't align with those of its home country
normalizes the abridgment of free speech everywhere it operates,
she adds. (Google already removes links from its search engine in
compliance with local laws -- for example, Germany's hate-speech
rules.)
To understand why Google would choose to move away from its
founding values, it helps to look at what its leaders might hope to
get in exchange. Google is currently coping with flat growth in
smartphone sales, more competition in digital advertising ( even
from Amazon), growing regulation in Europe, including a record $5
billion fine, fresh calls for regulation in the U.S. at the federal
level and the passage of a comprehensive California privacy act. It
also faces possible new regulation and protectionist laws in India,
and the rise of tech companies in China that can compete
globally.
So far, none of these headwinds have managed to slow growth in
Google's revenue. Google's leaders are thinking about the future,
however, and since Google is still overwhelmingly reliant on
advertising, they surely know that eventually they will saturate
even that substantial market.
China is a notoriously difficult place for Western firms to get
a toehold. Yet there is definitely a market in China for even a
censored Google search engine, says Rui Ma, a Chinese-American
angel investor who splits her time between Beijing and Silicon
Valley.
China's dominan search giant, Baidu, is widely believed to be
advertiser-friendly to the point that it promotes spam and
misinformation, says Ms. Ma. In 2016, Chinese regulators began to
crack down on Baidu for its inclusion of misleading information.
Spam and promoted results are "the bulk of the complaints about
Baidu from Chinese people," she says. "It's not about censored
results."
Baidu has told the Journal in the past that it believes its
competitors could be behind criticism of the company.
Google's stated mission is to "organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful." For whom, exactly,
would Google be "organizing the world's information" if it allows
the Chinese government to dictate what is real.
And what will be the result of Google's potential collaboration
on cloud services with Tencent? The two companies have been talking
for over a year about a scenario in which Google would obey China's
data-residency laws and keep users' data in the country. This could
mean exposing it not just to China's censors but making its
technology directly accessible to the Chinese government.
This isn't just about Google and China. In fact, many other
businesses -- Apple Inc. included -- have found ways of working
within China without creating a backlash among customers and
employees alike. All companies are driven by profits, even
"mission-driven" ones. But by initially laying out the "Don't be
evil" mission, Google held itself to a higher standard. Any
apparent departure from that runs the risk of damaging its
brand.
There is an irony in Google's attempt to strengthen its business
by bending toward realpolitik. Many of the brightest people in tech
come to Google not just for the catered meals and ample pay, but
because they are stirred by its idealistic mission. Those people
might be equally motivated by the company's abandonment of it -- to
leave.
One Stanford study on the politics of leaders in Silicon Valley
found them strongly liberal, but at odds with Democrats on labor
rights and government regulation. West Coast tech workers have
begun organizing to oppose their own employers on matters like
treatment of contract workers. If Google continues down the path
it's on, it seems destined to alienate both existing employees and
potential new hires.
In an industry where the biggest companies get bigger by
investing in themselves and their own technology, Google's attempt
to "grow up" means it's playing a dangerous game, not just with
global democracy but also, potentially, its own bottom line.
Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 16, 2018 09:59 ET (13:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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