Kevin Lu brought up an interesting story in where Google was fined $22.5 million for

secretly tracking the browsing of Safari users using cookies.

The internet giant violated their own policy just to install unwanted third-party tracking cookies through Safari. As an individual who strongly believes in proper business ethics, I ask why did Google do this? Furthermore, Kevin brings up another good point in saying that Google received the slightest of punishments. Google makes $136 million in revenue a day, and all they get is a $22.5 million fine?

$22.5 million is a big number, but for violation of that capacity, is there no bigger consequence? To me, had this been a lesser known company, they would be branded with a title such as, “Hackers intent on stealing your personal data,”; however, Google continues on to be known as the reliable search engine.

What compelled me to write about this is big companies are not graced with the ability to bypass their own policies. It’s not proper, and no where near ethical. A company can thrive on good ethics; a company with a foundation of good ethics can also expect superb loyalty. Although not a reliable source, I’ve read comments on this topic saying people have STOPPED using Google because of this incident. My hope is Google does not attempt to do something like this again.

Sources:

http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/09/google-ftc-safari-tracking-22-5-million-fine/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2186270/Google-forced-22million-fine-spying-Safari-users-STILL-refuses-admit-wrong.html

https://blogs.ubc.ca/kevinlu/