In today’s world, the internet has become part of our everyday lives. We can communicate through email, post pictures, and even pay bills all at the click of a button. Needless to say, a lot of our personal and private information can be found over the internet, but recently however, the U.S. government has been under fire for the non-warranted surveillance of this information, and Google employees are outraged.
For a company like Google, a number of issues will surface as a result of this. Firstly, Google is a tech company with a global infrastructure, so wherever their services are used, information will be sent onto a global network. If the U.S. government is able to gain access to this information, countries in other parts of the world will not feel safe using Google’s services. Brazil for example, is considering “data localization laws”, preventing Google from doing business in “one of the world’s most significant markets”.
Another issue that arises is the fact that this completely goes against not only Google’s undermining organizational culture, but business ethics in general. To the public, Google has always been known as a positive place to work, with lots of empowerment and intrinsic motivation for employees. When something their users realizes the information they give while using Google’s services have been under surveillance from the government, it takes a huge lash at both the trust they share, and the revenue streams of Google.
http://images.electricpig.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-hq-6.jpg