Discuss about the Critical Business Ethics and Social Responsibility.
Google was born out of a research of a number of prior permutations and combinations for facilitating online access to billion of users with regard to information. The inventors of the company, Sergey Brin and Larry Page started “BackRub” in 1996, through which it used to link web pages for enabling a certain search string to find any information (Christensen, Mackey and Whetten 2014). Google was born in the year 1998, which was coined after the term “gogol”.
The ease of operating the search engine Google by the users propelled the company to dizzying heights, posing stiff challenges to its competitors and even eliminating them from the competition as it gradually spread its activities and functioning across every spectrum around the world. After gaining a stable ground, it acquired several companies along the way; the most important was “Orkut”, which used to be popular in some South American nations and in some developing countries in the Asian economy (Christensen, Mackey and Whetten 2014). It owns several renowned websites like Picasa, YouTube and Google+. Before Facebook started to breath down the neck of Google, it held the distinction of being the most valuable company in the world before being toppled by Apple in 2011 (Bygrave 2014).
Since it is a very common phenomenon to have ethical issues being encountered by all companies in operation, Google also faced similar dilemma, especially when it entered China. China’s government has strict rules and regulations with respect to internet activities and many publishers and authors have accused the company of their copyright infringement, which is considered a serious violation in the eyes of law (Doh, Husted and Yang 2016). Close on the heels of infringement of copyright comes the issue of privacy and its protection from fraud. This has been given a serious thought by governments of different nations as many users have alleged that their information security is at risk of getting exposed in the light of Google’s intrusion on the privacy domain. To protect the interest of its stakeholders along with privacy, certain defense mechanisms have been incorporated for better corporate governance.
Google being the largest search engine site in the world and one of the top five companies in terms of market value, it has a huge responsibility of the rights and duties of its stakeholders, as without their support and commitment, it will not be possible for the company to carry out their daily operations around the globe, with varied rules and regulations in different countries. Google follows certain principles of corporate governance and philosophies, which protect it from being dragged to court over serious allegations of breach of trust. Since the business premise of Google is to help and empower the common man to access uninterrupted services for information gathering, it has to abide by the law of the land and cooperate with it, whenever any issue comes up for redress. Data protection law is of utmost importance as any violation in this aspect is not tolerated by anyone in the eyes of law (Hartman et al. 2014). Any user who wants to access any information he wishes to have or wants to transact online, he/she expects the service provider to protect his/her credentials and not divulge any details, which might get compromised. The purpose and objectives of Google is not only to facilitate information to the world, but to also empower them through various channels of service with protection of data.
By virtue of its vast network and influence in the global arena, Google has the requisite power and ability to protect the lives of its stakeholders through various means. The company has to ensure that it protects the information of its users and maintain confidentiality of the accounts so that data does not get into the wrong hands. If any information reaches the wrong person, then the company has to own up the responsibility of the same and restore the privacy. They have to upgrade the firewall protection software in their systems from time to time so that the information is not shared with any third person without obtaining the prior permission from the concerned user. The most important stakeholders of Google can be classified as:
Users are those persons, who use the search engine of the company for meeting their requirements. They are individuals and groups of persons or organizations, who access the database for perusal of information for free, as the users do not have to pay for accessing any information on the Google’s platform. They are the end users of the company’s services and their usage and behavior determines the strategy of the company and its philosophy (Kolk 2016).
For Google, its employees are of paramount importance as it is they, who dedicate and perform to the best of their abilities for bringing the desired result for the organization and elevate it to the pinnacle of success. Since employees always want a work culture where idea and creativity are given priority along with good compensation and nice reward packages, Google takes care of these expectations through facilitation of multiple options (Rupp et al. 2015). The company provides several facilities to the employees like fitness centre, launderettes, daycare among others. It provides other perquisites like buffet lunches, basketball court, volleyball arena, reimbursement for tuition of their children and on top on this, it also helps them set up solar panels on the rooftops of the employees residents in order to promote the culture and habit of green living. Since it has a flexible work culture, many people consider it as one of the most desired companies to work for as it also takes care of the employees of the suppliers through its code of conduct for the suppliers.
The success of Google depends mainly on the advertisers as it’s the primary source of generating revenue. Since the stakeholders are interested in getting advertisements which are effective in nature, Google provides that level and quality of the same, which in turn bodes well for the advertisers as well. Google’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) is mainly directed towards its advertising companies, which provide the platform for the company to showcase their products and services (Rupp et al. 2015).
Google went for the public offering in the year 2004 and since then the CSR activity has been actively influenced through the participation of its investors, who are considered as important the employees itself working in the company. The company has been able to raise a large amount of capital through these investors and they in turn, have helped the organization grow to where it is now. Since the main focus of Google is to provide useful products for its users, the investors get satisfied as the company turns more profitable.
The growth and success of any organization depends greatly on the established rules and regulations of the government of a nation and Google is no exception either. Since the operation of Google is global in nature, it has to abide by the prevailing laws of different countries as government is a major stakeholder in this aspect. Being a major stakeholder, it has to ensure as to whether the company is discharging its services in line with its regulatory compliances. This is in line with Google’s own policy of making money without any evil.
Community plays an important part in the success story of the organization as their perception highly influences the smooth functioning of the company as a whole (Zheng, Luo and Wang 2014). It has committed more than $100 million through its charitable arm Google.org and helps in combating climate change, poverty and public health among others. These CSR activities have propelled the company to the apex of the growth pyramid and establish itself as a responsible global corporate.
Being such a large company, it endures many risks related to ethical code of conduct in the world of technology. Even though Google has been named as the pioneer of compliance with regard to ethical rules and regulations, certain exceptions have marred its reputation a bit while encountering allegations and lawsuits in some European countries and the home country (US) as well for copyright infringement and illegal advertisements. It has had to face similar issues from numerous publishers and artistes accusing the company of violating the code of conduct by digitally uploading their works without prior permission or authority (Mason and Simmons 2014). Many European nations have made provisions for stricter compliance of rules and regulations so as to protect the user’s data and information from getting misused by any company. In its home country, it has faced intense scrutiny over the company’s latest acquisition of Motorola Mobility. With the growth of the company, it will face an increasing amount of pressure from its competitors and startups, which fear their functioning, might be at stake due to the former’s highly influential conduct and practices.
With the emergence of internet and evolution of technology in the twenty first century, the world has witnessed an exponential growth of information sharing, which are sometimes beneficial and in some cases against the set protocols of the law of the land (Christensen, Mackey and Whetten 2014). Since Google provides information to its users free of cost, the users also think it as normal to share their basic details in lieu of getting that same information and not realize the consequences of the same. In recent times, as it has been revealed that both Google and Facebook share the user information for tailoring their advertisement philosophy, it has shaken the user community to a great extent. Although Google has a privacy policy in place, where it is specifically mentioned that the company does not part with the user information, there have been several instances that user information has been breached without their prior consent (Danezis et al. 2015).
Making profit while also protecting the privacy quotient is the path the company has to choose to function in a prudent and responsible fashion. Providing information to the user does not mean that the company should share the same with any third party without rightful consent of the user concerned, as the same would amount to violation of ethical code of conduct between them (Trepte et al. 2015). Resorting to this will compromise the trust factor the user community place on the company as their perception will change with a change in the company’s attitude towards them. The footprint which the company has built through years of hard work and dedication to the community at large will evaporate in an instant if profit comes at the cost of privacy breach.
In spite of being the most popular site for searching content, 52% of the users have expressed concern over the company’s privacy policy, which could pose a major obstacle in building bridges with the user base as trust takes a hit (Bourgeois et al. 2016).
One of the pressing issues relating to privacy of user information confronting Google is the fact, that the company stores the information strings on its database as claimed by various legal circles but Google denies any breach of the same as according to them, it helps in refining their activity and streamline them for better customer experience. For security purposes, the US government can pull the company to provide any logical explanation with regard to information leak and data protection (Kuchinke et al. 2016). Not only personal information of a user, but the national security of a country gets compromised if the company fails to comply with the stated rules and protocols of the government, as data breach can endanger the sovereignty of a nation when other nations try to take unfair advantage of the loopholes.
Since privacy is a tricky issue, Google has had to tread a slippery path when it decided to enter China, where stricter rules and regulations awaited them (Bygrave 2014). Being the world’s most populous nation with more than 1 billion people, Google wanted to tap the opportunity of growing their business over there, but with tough riders in the form of strict privacy rules of the country. Since the government of China is very particular about its security and information aspects, Google had to endure the prospect of scrutiny by the government on the users’ search patterns, which proved to become a conflict of interest with the company’s philosophy of individual data protection (Gellert and Gutwirth 2013). Gradually, the company started to realize that its benefits are outweighing costs to a significant extent as it resorted to self-censorship of some controversial websites for better regulation. Later on, the situation turned volatile as it started to encounter various problems from the government, which began blocking several sites to the users. Profits tumbled to record lows as cyber attacks stared to hit the company hard, which ultimately forced Google to shift its head office to Hong Kong (Banisar 2016).
In the backdrop of this phenomenon, Google envisaged setting up a warning and defense mechanism to enable users beforehand as to whether accessing a site is allowed (Swire 2014). Restriction of information to the user meant it won’t be able to access data which could be sensitive or confidential from the government’s point of view.
Tracking by Google has proved to be a major headache for the company as it tries to fend off accusations of data breach from different privacy advocates, who feel it violates the rights and privacies of the users (Gutwirth and De Hert 2015). Users sometimes are also not aware of the ramifications of the same, who regularly browse the internet for accessing a plethora of information. From the company’s point of view, accessing of private searches is needed in order to enable it to develop advertisements and also for making location-enabled network features and stay ahead in the competition (Hoepman 2014). In this context, it is prudent to mention that since all the services provided by Google are free of cost to the users, consumers are free to decide upon themselves whether to place greater emphasis on their privacy aspect or the search engine provider’s free services.
Protecting privacy and maintaining profitability can go hand in hand if the company abides by the set out rules and regulations existing in different countries. Adherence to data protection rules and protocols is the first step in guaranteeing security and confidentiality of information to the users (Silva et al. 2015). According to several security analysts, Google was exploiting some loopholes in web browser application Safari by bypassing the policies but soon it fell in line after the US Federal Trade Commission indicted the organization for the same and imposed a hefty fine of $22.5 million on it to settle the dispute (Oliver 2015).
Owing to several issues and complaints from the consumers, many governments have proposed amendments to its existing laws and some have implemented certain strictures pertaining to the access of information of the users. Certain countries are promoting self-regulation mechanisms for the companies providing content materials on the net, while some are issuing blanket ban on the unhindered proliferation of information to the end users (Kshetri 2014). The effect of this approach undermines the very premise of liberating information access to all, as restricting any access might catapult to a grave scenario for the future companies as well.
With growing concern for privacy issues, it is imperative for the government to formulate strict yet flexible regulatory strategies, which will enable the firm to deliver information in a legitimate way without compromising on the security aspect. Since lots of rules and new legislations would be an impediment to its growth prospects, Google has tied up with other online firms to stave off the implementation of the same (Martin, Borah and Palmatier 2017).
Too much interference by any government regulatory authority into the functioning of the internet companies would stifle the freedom of expression and hinder the growth prospects of the company in the future (Randall et al. 2016). However, with the growing instances of cyber attacks and proliferation of fraudulent online activities, it won’t be easy for the firms to stonewall the implementation of certain regulating and restricting mechanisms. Therefore, it is in the best interests of these companies to cooperate with the government agencies and help in framing the laws, which will negate the negative implications in the future, if any (De Hert and Boulet 2016).
Conclusion:
In light of the above facts and deliberations, a company which started from the scratch to becoming one of the worlds’ most valuable and respected technological companies, Google has established itself as a pioneer in the modern search engine era. While many may have termed its penchant for acquisition of companies as an overreach, it is an indisputable fact that the services rendered by it are accepted widely across the globe. It has earned itself the distinction of being one of the most favoured companies to work for as the benefits provided by Google are socially driven for the empowerment of its employees. Not only does it have on site facilities for them, but it also promotes self belief and participation in making company decisions. The CSR activities of Google are also commendable in the sense, that it provides millions of funds to different global charities and supporting of green initiatives. In addition to being a facilitator of growth, the company is also bogged down by privacy and security issues of its user base. From its bitter experience in China to tracking the user database for gaining information in a clandestine manner, it has endured several challenges and lawsuits in court of law from a number of authors and publishers, who considered the company’s acts as a blatant infringement of copyright. In light of the above arguments, the company has been forced to draw a fine line of balance between profiteering and protection of privacy. Since this issue will take time to die down, Google has developed and incorporated certain defense mechanisms in its online services as well as deputed lobbyists to stall any legislation by the government(s), which will prove detrimental to its growth philosophy of earning revenue through advertisements and tracking user preferences. Since it has contributed in corporate social responsibilities to a great extent, investors have also shown serious interest in promoting the company’s activities. From the perspective of the community at large and also from the governments’ standpoint on data privacy and information security, there remains a great scope for improvement in the way it conducts its business activities by not antagonizing anyone and getting itself entangled in legal crosshairs.
References:
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