Google's Case Study

Google, the world’s most popular search engine, has a slogan “Don’t be evil” (“Google”). Its headquarter, Googleplex, is nominated as one of the top five best workplaces. The company is renowned for providing its staffs with incredibly luxurious welfare. However, despite of the successful outlook Google has, there has been a drastic increase in the number of companies trying to sue Google. These lawsuits mostly involve companies accusing Google banning their sites, and they argue whether it is fair and ethical for Google to do so; ethics refers to “norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior” (Resnik). Similarly, Pets Plus is facing the same dilemma. Yet in my opinion, Mark should not sue Google as he was not sure what exactly he has done to trigger Google in removing Pets Plus. Besides, he does not have convincing arguments if he was to file a class action suit.

Mark thinks Google is responsible for Pets Plus’s monetary loss due to the close to zero web traffic. When Pets Plus was up and running in the early stage, it was ranked first in Google’s search result page. Mark has contributed a lot of effort in boosting the web traffic; include joining ‘AdSense’ programme, and linking Pets Plus with some other twenty sites. However, Pets Plus was no longer ranked in the first ten pages two months later. Mark was astonished and later found out Google has blocked his website. Mark finds it unfair since Google was not able to explain the blocking, and instead Google merely reassured Mark that the company uses a set of objective algorithm to rank webpages. Hence, Mark thinks Google should take the blame, and be responsible for his declining business.

Furthermore, Mark should sue Google for exploiting its rights as a dominating search engine. Pets Plus as a small business was only trying to set up a website directory to provide Internet users with pets related materials. Mark, as a young site owner, may not possess the necessary knowledge to understand the complicated terms he has with Google. Setting aside whether did Mark violate any regulations, Google as a responsible company should at least let Mark know before blocking off Pets Plus. It is ethically incorrect for Google to exploit small