Google Ethical Issues

Submitted By camcow14
Words: 541
Pages: 3

There were several significant ethical issues that were brought up during the case on Google. The six that were discussed at length were: The privacy of Gmail, The privacy of individuals, Google in China, Refusing Requests from the Justice Department, The Scanning of Copyrighted Material and their Role in Click Fraud.
The first of these is the Privacy of Gmail, Google had an automated process in place that would scan all incoming e-mails looking for key words and use the words to insert adds into the e-mail that were associated with these key words. Google claimed that no actual employee would read the email and that it was all an automated process. However the Electronic Communications Privacy Act forbids ISP’s or any other organization from monitoring the content of e-mails without authorization. In addition to the privacy of Gmail there is also the issue of the privacy of individuals. Google’s main functionality is the ability to search nearly anything on the internet, including the personal information of some people. One of the most interesting points where this was most evident was when an employee from CNET “googled” the wealth of CEO Eric Schmidt, Needless to say Mr. Scnmidt was not thrilled and ended up banning any reporter form CNET from talking to any Google employee.
Google in addition to the privacy problems Google made different hypocritical deals with governments both local and overseas. In China even though Google claims to be an open book and allow the ability to search anything when Google entered the market in China they signed an agreement with the Chinese government that they would restrict some searches including filtering out content on Human Rights and Democracy. This seems to be a very hypocritical move by Google seeming their transparent outlook. Back in the United States there were getting in trouble with the US Government. In January of Google declined to assist the Department of Justice when they were requesting information in defending the Child Online Protection act of 1998. The information being