First off, that entire “Do no Evil” line is PR, nothing more, nothing less. All companies are inherently good and evil, when there is something in it for them. That being said, which company is acting unethically here:
Let’s see the context: after doing a search, when I scroll over the result, I notice that Google and MSFT handle search results differently.
On the right, in Internet Explorer, when you conduct a search, you can copy shortcut the link and paste it as such:
In other words, you get the URL of the underlying website in the search result.
However, on the left, in Mozilla Firefox, when you conduct a search, when you copy shortcut the link and paste it, it comes out as such:
In other words, unlike MSFT, Google clearly “inserts” itself in the mix there. If I were to do that and send it someone, the user would click through and be redirected to the underlying site via Google.
Technically, Google gets both a) credit for the click and b) data on who is clicking on what.
Is that evil? Nope. It does not really change much. It surely is smart… but should MSFT do that, too… or should Google not do that at all? Technically, maybe/probably MSFT does that and shelters its redirect URL… but the difference is that Google’s modus operandi there is less user-friendly. If I want to copy and paste a link to someone, I have to click through to the site, copy it, and then paste it onwards. With IE, I need not do those extra steps.
Or is this much ado about nothing and I need to get back to work?
Thoughts?
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