How could lawsuit and criticism-distressed Google still boast of "doing no evil"?

"Offensive" product No. 2: news, videos and maps

Groups offended: the media, websites of various kinds and antitrust authorities

Google's products, such as news, videos and maps are all information service products, and the information is gleaned from media and websites around the world. These search service products offered by Google are greatly welcomed by users. However, Google's money-making strategy of "obtaining advertisement resources by using information free of charge" has led to complaints and alertness among information suppliers.

Newspapers and magazines in Germany have blamed Google, saying that Google stole their readers by using unfair competitive methods. German map websites claimed that Google has destroyed their rural markets. The American Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) has removed its videos from Google's YouTube website. The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has also required Google to take some videos of the Academy Award ceremony off its YouTube website… Obviously, we can see that these information suppliers are no longer willing to allow Google a free ride.

The increasing influence of Google also offended some antitrust authorities. These authorities worry that Google is abusing its dominant position on the Internet. What Google is doing is that it always uses the headline news or the brief descriptions of the news published on other news websites unless these websites clearly state the news cannot be re-published. In addition, an Internet engineer disclosed that Google might use filtering software to eliminate some websites from relevant search results, and that would make the websites suffer commercial losses.

"Offensive" product No. 3: Gmail's Buzz

Groups offended: common users

On February 11, Iran Telecoms announced that Iran would permanently suspend Google's Gmail service and launch a national e-mail service. On the same day, Google launched its Buzz service. As soon as Buzz, a service which is quite similar to the micro-blogging website Twitter, was launched, it quickly began to receive criticism. The reasons are 3 automatic settings. First, Google automatically registers its Gmail users for the Buzz service. In other words, Gmail users already have this service before they apply for it or choose to use it. Second, Buzz automatically creates a Buzz friend list for a user using names in the user's Gmail contacts list. Third, Buzz automatically sends the latest contents on a user's Buzz micro-blog to the e-mail boxes of the user's Gmail friends. All of these settings make it possible that users' private information could possibly be leaked. On February 16, the U.S. Electronic Privacy Information Centre announced that the Buzz service had violated Federal Consumer Protection Laws.

After using Buzz, a woman angrily wrote that she used Gmail to communicate mostly with her mother and boyfriend, but the person who was next to them was her ex-husband. Google's Buzz automatically set that they (including her ex-husband) could see some of her private information, but only she and her boyfriend had the right to read the information. 

"It does not matter whether users are active on Buzz. Many claim that Google's real purpose is to learn what you are chatting about or watching, to observe the messages you write so that they will have all of your things at their fingertips. After doing so, Google can do a lot, including pushing advertising and personalized searches," said a technologist from a dot-com company.

"Google keeps and analyzes all users' search records, IP addresses, and preferences. Maybe some rabid technology admirers think that Google stores the information just to provide more personalized and considerate service, but I care more about the security of personal information," said Zhang Lei, a college student.