Google To Shareholders: See No Evil

Shareholders in Google will be voting on two controversial provisions about how to govern Google affairs.

The first concerns internet censorship such as that practiced by China and several other countries where much of the online content is monitored, some content is prohibited, and internet archiving is used for political persecution of dissidents.

This proposed set of censorship rules would direct Google to take very aggressive measures to fight censorship. Specifically the vote is whether to implement these policies at Google:

1) Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.
2) The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.
3) The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.
4) Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.
5) Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.
6) The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available

The second proposal would amend the bylaws to establish a Human Rights committee:

The proposed Bylaw would establish a Board Committee on Human Rights which would review and make policy recommendations regarding human rights issues raised by the company’s activities and policies.

Google's proxy outlines each of them in more detail, and Google has recommended a "no" vote on both.

In the case of the internet censorship provisions Google will argue that they would make it more difficult to conduct business in some countries, especially if other players like Yahoo and Microsoft are unbound by such restrictions. However a careful read of the rules above does not suggest that they would seriously interfere with Google's business practices.

Arguably much more outrageous, however, is the decision not to establish a human rights committee at Google. This provision is worded in such as way that it is hard to imagine how it would inhibit Google business or open them to liabilities beyond current levels of exposure.

More importantly, as *the* world's key player in the internet space Google has an obligation to uphold human rights whenever possible and to be extremely proactive in fostering human rights with respect to internet activity.

This is a sad day for Google and the recommendation is a death blow to their now transparently specious "Do No Evil" mantra. Google has an obligation to promote human rights within the reasonable confines of their business structure and goals. In this obligation, they have now dramatically failed.