Poor old Google is in hot water over its decision to cave in to China’s demands for restrictions on what it will allow appearing on Google China sites.
The story spread like wildfire around the internet to the point where it made the English language news at Bay Radio, here in Javea, Spain. I heard it on the 1700 CET news while out and about.
The Google story is interesting for professionals because it highlights an issue with which technology companies are all too familiar. On the one hand you have the US with its liberal freedom of speech laws to which Google has aligned itself with the tag ‘Do No Evil.’ It helped make it the runaway success it is today. On the other, there are commercial considerations for a company, that like thousands of others, sees China as the next honeypot.
Money has no morals, people do. And it is for that reason that Google is being flayed. It says one thing and does another. Yet it is also embroiled in a vigorous defence against the US over the handing over of internet search records. Richard Silverstein encapsulates the story well when he says:
But doesn’t Google display a double standard here? It is willing to compromise its values regarding the the need for information and knowledge to be freely available to all (except the snooping Justice Department, of course) for China’s sake. But it maintains a gold standard on the subject within the United States.
Why should you care? What does this have to do with the profession?
Compliance and governance are high on the boardroom agenda. Professionals are being buried by OTT money laundering laws. HMRC is aggressively pursuingthose who create inventive tax schemes. Yet at precisely the time the profession needs to take the moral high ground – one or other of the Big 4 – the ones who are the effective public face of the profession – just can’t keep out the news – and for all the wrong reasons.
It seems to me you have a plain and simple choice. You either act in the best interests of your stakeholders within an admittedly imperfect framework or you prostitute yourself on the alter of greed. As Google is finding out, there is no middle ground.
The speed with which this story has circumnavigated the world and the ferocity with which bloggers have attacked Google proves that this medium is not a fad. It is powerful and it is here now. So I ask this. What price reputation?
