Some have interpreted the ceaseless criticisms of Google's privacy policies and its co-operation with totalitarian regimes as a sign the Don't Be Evil goal is unattainable for a profit-driven company. At the very least, the corporate motto has encouraged the public and the press to hold Google to a higher standard. "It really wasn't like an elected, ordained motto," Google's vice-president and 20th employee, Marissa Mayer, said in an interview during her trip to Sydney last week.

"I think that 'Don't Be Evil' is a very easy thing to point at when you see Google doing something that you personally don't like; it's a very easy thing to point out so it does get targeted a lot." Janis Wardrop, associate lecturer in organisation and management at the University of NSW, said that, regardless of Google's stated motto, companies are always set up to look after their shareholders and not other stakeholders. "It [the motto] is good PR but really it's empty because it's questionable whether shareholders will care [whether Google is evil or not]," she said.

The most recent Google product to raise the ire of privacy activists is the Street View feature of Google Maps, already launched for over 40 US cities and expected to be unveiled for Australia this year. Google-branded cars with roof-mounted cameras have been traversing Australian capital city streets since late last year, taking highly detailed, panoramic photos. Soon, Google Maps users will be able to explore much of the country at ground level for the first time, using only a computer and an internet connection.

Privacy groups are up in arms because Google has not made a firm commitment to obscure faces and numberplates, and there have been no assurances that Google's drivers won't accidentally head down private roads. In the US, Google is already being sued by a US couple for publishing photographs of their home, on a street clearly marked with a private road sign, on Street View. It has also been accused of invading privacy with photos taken from public streets, as numerous people were unwittingly snapped in embarrassing or compromising positions. Google offers to take down invasive or sensitive images when it is notified but even that has not been enough to placate its critics, who say Google should vet images before they are put online or accept legal liability for invasions of privacy.

But even before Street View, Google has long faced criticisms over the way it handles the vast stores of personal information it collects from users of its various products. Collecting as much personal data as possible makes perfect commercial sense because it allows search companies such as Google to deliver highly targeted advertising and better search results, effectively making them more competitive.

But at the same time, people are beginning to fear they are losing control of their personal data and are reluctant to unequivocally trust Google to use their information responsibly. Google has already committed to anonymising search logs to ensure data it collects is not personally identifiable, and cut the time it stores search information to 18 months. But a report from the European Union's privacy watchdog, released this month, said Google and its competitors should go further and delete user data after six months, while making it clearer to users why their personal information is being retained.

Google has also been attacked for co-operating with totalitarian regimes by censoring its search results in China to appease the Chinese Government. Amnesty International pointed to Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto in criticising the company over the "self-censorship". Ironically, Yahoo has also modified its service at China's request - and gave its government information which led to the imprisonment of cyber dissidents - but Google continues to cop the most scrutiny and criticism over the issue.



Even Google's attempt this year to spruik its environmental credentials - by announcing plans to develop a gigawatt of new renewable energy - has been torn apart. An article in Harper's magazine accuses Google of triggering an infrastructure arms race between it and competitors Microsoft and Yahoo, concluding the massive data centres they are building all over the world will be far worse energy guzzlers. In response to the Harper's article, Google said the entire company was carbon neutral.



Mayer, who controls the direction of Google's key products including web search, news, images and maps, would not give a direct answer when asked whether the company now regretted the motto or whether she believed Google was now held to a higher standard than its competitors. "I don't think that we should be held to a lower standard," she said.

"I think that what we're doing is very meaningful, it's very important, it's serious, it has large-scale ramifications for people in their lives and as a result we need to take it very seriously and we should be held to a very high standard regardless of whether it's self imposed or imposed through public scrutiny." Mayer explained that Don't Be Evil was coined in 1999 by one of Google's first engineers, Amit Patel, who shared a work cubicle with Mayer. She said Patel and other early employees were resistant when staff with business skills began joining the engineer-driven company. The engineers feared they would be pressured into moving certain clients higher in search results listings or building products they did not want to build.

Patel voiced his fears via the whiteboard in the conference room where Google sales people met clients. "In this incredibly neat handwriting in tiny little letters on the bottom right hand side of the white board, he wrote 'Don't Be Evil'," Mayer said.

Some time later, when Google had 200-300 employees, its human resources team decided the company needed corporate values. They called a team meeting of some of Google's senior staff. After they brainstormed 10 positive corporate values, Paul Bucheit, the inventor of Gmail, suggested ditching those in favour of one that covered all angles - Don't Be Evil. "Originally Don't Be Evil was No.6 on the corporate values [list] but it's the only one that stuck because it's the catchiest and, as Paul said, encompasses everything else," said Mayer.