Google: You Can Make Money Without Doing Evil

Op-Ed Contributor

by Greg Smith

(WireNews+Co) - London, England - 28 September 2012

Everyone knows that Google likes to tell us that they can make money without doing evil. The "do no evil" mantra—one of the company's core beliefs—number 6 on their list of 10 things (https://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/) they claim that they know to be true, sounds nice, but in reality, it's just a ruse.

As anyone knows if you have to tell people what you're doing then it's not working.

I started this business of press release distribution in April 2001 and have been using Google Adsense since then. Since 2008, four times now and for no apparent reason Google has suspended my Adsense account.

Each time they have refused to offer any reason for their action.

Each time they have refused to reconsider their actions.

Each time they have contacted me by email some months later to encourage me to start using Adsense again and each time I have been foolish enough to think that the people behind the company where not merely acting out some devilish scenario in which they entertained themselves by restoring Adsense to our website, only to remove it again, right before they were set to make a payout.

Not that it matters very much to me, but I wonder how much money Google makes by charging the advertiser and not paying the publisher. I expect they would say that they either refund or don't charge the advertiser, but how would you know?

Needless to say, we won't be using Adsense again, evil or no.

Repeating the same tired mantra while you mistreat and manipulate people doesn't make it so. It makes you a hypocrite.