Screenshots: Google...'Don't be evil'

This 50-minute documentary titled “The World According to Google” is part of the popular Backlight series aired in the Dutch public channel Net3, which syndicates many of the episodes in other countries like Japan, Germany, Australia and the USA.

Following Google's informal corporate motto, "Don't be evil', that co-founder Sergey Brin talked so much about, I took an interest in the company's business model in China as several issues attributed to the company are being discussed at the university level in the US. Last week, I was in the Netherlands for an international debate and, again, Google featured prominently in the two rounds I was slotted in.

We showed the audience this documentary directed by celebrated producer IJsbrand van Veelen, which studies Google’s modus operandi in detail. Van Veelen happened to be my sparring partner in Round One of the debate. We ended up having drinks into the wee hours, and he paid for our taxi fare to the hotel.

The documentary, produced in collaboration with Dutch national public broadcast organisation VPRO, was aired over Net3 a couple of weeks before the debate, so the audience had high memory retention of the programme, which helped trigger thoughts-sharing from the floor.

Key among the discussion points was that Google, through its mantra of “Don’t be Evil”, seems to have the best intentions for its stakeholders and its end-users. Due to the incidents aligning it to the business environment in China, there had been claims that Google is slowly turning into Big Brother. The very nature that Google users are depositing their personal information helps the company keep track of its users’ surfing behavior, and make decisions on the users’ behalf about the information it provides to an ever enlarging user community.

Hence the question arose during the debate whether Google will rise as a new Library of Alexandria in the digital age? Or is Google morphing into a monopolistic Big Brother that ultimately challenges the freedom of expression?

Those were also the blunt questions van Veelen posed in the documentary to Vint Cerf, one of the 'Fathers of Internet' who now works for Google. Evidently, Vint Cerf became defensive and avoided answering the sharp questions posed to him.

If you guys are interested, I may arrange for a viewing session somewhere in KL.

More details in my CNet blog, Lemak Lemang.