define evil

Poll added and thread moved to Off-Topic.

Are you kidding? Companies are run by people, and companies can certainly do some evil stuff to other companies or people.

Look out, it's RoboMaid!

Suck... suck... suck....

Just brace yourselves when she switches from Suck to Blow.

A corporation, while enjoying some legal rights also afforded to actual people, is not a sentient entity (hence that whole "limited liability thing"). The actions it takes are the result of the actions of people, who may be evil.

It's a semantic quibble, but then the whole thread is a semantic quibble.

Re: Corporations inherently being evil comment. Now that's a topic worth discussion. My take on it is that as defined by the social contract, a corporation is inherently a force for good. The reality is that as soon as you empower a legal "being" (corporation in this case, but no less true for individuals) with rights, it immediately begins to seek for more power/rights. In other words, it is self-seeking.

If corporations were held to the terms of the social contract under which they existed by their host nations, they would be forces for good for said nations. As they are not, they can be quite detrimental.

Let's take an example. A corporation is formed in the US to produce a gadget. By social contract, it exists in order to provide goods and services and jobs to its host country (US). It shifts all its production and service provision to India. It is in violation of its social contract to the US, and should correspondingly lose the freedoms it enjoys as a corporation.

</soapbox>

SImply: No, not yet..

Maybe I wouldn't say it's evil, but I'm avoiding it. To be honest I'm surprised by how much information about themselves people feel comfortable giving to a single (foreign) company. Google has some nice services but do you think they are doing it just to make your life easier? Maybe they don't use my personal data to anything evil (except advertising) right now but just in case, I won't give it to them on a silver plate.

The idea of all my e-mail, phone calls, sms, documents, contacts, purchases, searches, <insert data mining source here> going through Google makes me rush to get out my tinfoil hat which, frankly, I don't use much.

I still use Gmail and Google search, but might switch if I find out some good alternatives.

@jsa
I think if somebody tries to take google down in their own game it would mean that there are a lot of money involved, so i'd be even more careful trusting them my information.

As of google I really like their apps, because (gmail) gives me usability beyond any other application i have tried to date. And ATM I'm waiting for WAVE, being open standard, to replace the email and create a new gen of email clients.

With 'in their roots' I meant 'the concept of', 'the principle'. That does not imply their behavior is in every way evil, and philosophically speaking there may not even be inherent evil.

The problem with the indivuduals who take action not being liable (LLC!) still pertains. Why not go back to privately owned corporations instead?

Framework for contracts already exists, on a voluntary basis. We have Red Hat patent license, Trolltech's we-release-Qt-as-BSDL-if-we-go-bankrupt, and a vague Microsoft patent promise. Some of them are contracts, some not...