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Comment by espeed | Hacker News Reader

Google was founded on the principle of "Don't be evil", it has the power and influence to effect change, and it helped lead the charge against SOPA. Why is Google so silent now?

"He who has the ability to act on an injustice, but who stands idly by, is just as guilty as he who holds the knife."

How Google handles this will be its defining moment. This is could be an opportunity for Google to win the world over by showing it truly stands on its principles, or it could be its downfall, destroying its credibility, losing the trust of its users.

Maybe Google is working behind the scenes putting a game plan together, or maybe it's getting something out of the situation -- let's hope it's the former. Like Eisenhower said, "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

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"Dear Google, please save us!"

You might as well have said, "Dear God, please save us!"

Sorry, but you won't be saved by any corporate entity; they're in bed with the surveillance state anyways. It is people like us, yes, you included, who have to take up the baton and run with it.

Here are things you can do:

- Talk to your non-techie friends, and bring them up to speed

- Explain to them why "giving up rights for temporary safety" doesn't work

- Tell them why this sort of surveillance is against the core democratic principles this country was founded on

- Suggest to them that they should vote out any politician who supports such policies. In the end, it is the Congress' job to keep checks and balances; and they've failed miserably. Time for all of them to go.

You've mistaken me for someone else.

Corporations hold more influence with Congress than voters. Google has enormous power, but it lives and dies by its users. If we hold Google accountable to the point it has to act, its lead could trigger a movement among the Internet giants, and that's a mighty big lever.

> The truth of the matter is, corporations hold more influence with Congress than voters.

Corporations are convenient fictions. The truth of the matter is individuals with lots of money and connections hold more influence with Congress individuals without lots of money and connections.

Last year Google spent $18,220,000 lobbying Congress -- #8 on the top spenders list (http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2012&index...). That's not fiction, but it's a drop in Google's coffers.

And the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...) removed the ban which prevented corporations from using their treasury funds for direct advocacy.

I didn't say corporate lobbying was a fiction, I said corporations as independent entities are a convenient fiction; corporations are tools through which individuals exercise power, not real entities that have power of their own.

Google's mission statement is: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

It isn't to fall on it's sword and risk the entirety of the company fighting the US government on principale. I'd argue that doing that putting out of work tens of thousands of people in the worst case would "be evil".

http://www.google.com/about/

#1 of its core philosophies is:

"Focus on the user and all else will follow." (http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/)

Don't you think safeguarding its users data and keeping their trust would fall under that?

From a business perspective, if Google loses the trust of its users, it's the beginning of the end. Safeguarding user trust should be priority #1.

They do safeguard their users data. They also comply with laws under which they are subject to, they aren't mutually exclusive.

'Google was founded on the principle of "Don't be evil"'

I wish people would stop quoting this. It means nothing, and is not binding in any way. It sounded good, and it was a great marketing slogan - but it means absolutely nothing in reality.

"Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains" -- Google's 2004 IPO Prospectus (http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Courses/StratTech09/...).

Binding or not, it's a social contract, and it could mean the world if Google stands by it.

On the contrary, it lets Google use Crockford's jslint.

"Don't be evil" wasn't a founding principle, but one suggested by an engineer early in the company's history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

I've got my own very grave reservations about the company, but it has done some good stuff. I'm hoping we'll hear from them eventually. Truth is, much of The System is the way it is because the various participants have one another by the balls.

> Why is Google so silent now?

Because they are legally required to be silent. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732394990457853...

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