Jason Lee Miller wrote a thought-provoking article on Google this weekend. In it, he highlights some of the less than savory things Google has been involved in, such as siding with Chinese government for business reasons, supporting Youtube and Google Book Search and their copyright infringements, and Google Japan paying bloggers, among other things.

For business people, this is not a surprise: despite a credo of “do no evil”, money talks, and any company needs to support its shareholders (who by the way are perfectly in their right to sue if they feel management is NOT making them enough money). So warm feelings always take a back seat to finance.

In the future, expect more of this from the Big G: one area I see a problem with shortly is the Android phone. While advertised as Open Source, Open Source from a business point of view is awkward: everything you create can be used by anyone else and improved. Without a proprietary product, you’re forced to be an also-ran, and few companies wish to go that route if possible.

My opinion? Google will use Open Source in Android to gain market share, then scale back to more proprietary tactics. Adding new (and closed) features would be a simple solution – after all, isn’t that how we all upgraded to Vista, and XP before it? I’d be perfectly happy running Win98 now if it supported all the newer devices properly (large hard drives, USB etc) – but with a closed system, I’m stuck with what they offer to me. So the only real choice is to upgrade. THAT’S what a closed system is for.

And just one more thought: ask any philosophy student, and they’ll be happy to explain that ‘evil’ is a relative concept. Or talk to both sides in a conflict about what (and who) is evil – and expect two different answers. So perhaps it’s just the case that OUR concept of ‘do no evil’ isn’t the same as Google’s.

Or Microsoft’s.