Principles are an interesting thing. Whose principles? Even in a region like the United States you'll find that many principles aren't consistent.

Quite often people don't consider the principle differences others, even around them, have.

It's "don't be evil," not "do no evil." They're accepting of small amounts of evil so long as it doesn't come to characterize the company.

Every sprint, each engineer gets 7 story points and 3 evil points (less than 50% evil!). But if you're really ambitious, you can roll over your evil points and accrue them for a greater evil later. That's how we end up with things like privacy sandboxes and web integrity. Such launches are typically celebrated with ritualistic intern sacrifices and handlebar mustache stickers for the whole team.

I agree “don’t be evil” is pretty naive, as if the world were so black and white.

Do you believe the current state is problematic though?

I don’t see what’s so wrong with showing each country their preferred map, as regulated. Who is being harmed?

Also, wouldn’t it be weird for some international megacorp to start meddling in geopolitics by drawing lines the “right” way?

Even in a world of greys, there is light grey and dark grey. "Don't be evil" is an aspiration to acknowledge that principles exist and it would be better to adhere to them. Although obviously a company like Google isn't capable of doing that.

Although this doesn't count as evil. Showing locally adjusted maps is hardly even a light grey zone. If the authorities in country A say the border is there, draw it there when producing maps for that country. It is not complicated and it is a silly place to pick a fight - Google would lose if they lost and do nothing useful for anyone if they won. Nobody cares where Google thinks the borders are, they don't have an army and we do have VPNs.

> Nobody cares where Google thinks the borders are

there was a documented instance of a military action in Columbia-region IIR that allegedly relied on Google Maps. It is easy to see misinformation, but also easy to see actually low-literacy armed people doing something aggressive Once Again, relying on something that is easy to use.

What I see is a warmongering administration that wanted to go to war and was going to pick any reason to do so. Yes Google was the convenient excuse, but if Google didn’t do that, they would have found the next excuse.

Let’s look at the Russia situation now. Google didn’t draw Ukraine as part of Russia. And yet Putin found some reasons anyway.

Well like 13 years ago Nicaragua invaded part of Costa Rica, in part claiming that Google Maps put that land in their territory. https://www.wired.com/2010/11/google-maps-error-blamed-for-n...

Both as a joke but also in seriousness: if the Nicaraguan army can't figure out where the border is, how is Google meant to know?

In practice a key part of the army's job to decide where the border is. The commander is scapegoating to hide his own incompetence. Google's mapping may have contributed, but the lack of demarcation showing where the border is would have been a bigger issue. If the Google Maps aspect was enough to end up in the wrong country it was going to happen without Google being involved.

Well, what do you show to the rest of the world? I have seen and personally visited such places so I know about dotted lines, but its hard to not take any form of side and be truly neutral, even for google (it wasnt in places I checked).

I think every country has recognized map of other countries. E.g. US has officially recognized borders of Ukraine.

Those aren’t neutral either, however. The only way to be neutral in this regard would be to show not just the recognized borders and specifying that they’re not agreed upon, but show WHY they’re recognized (NATO consideration, anti-Russian sentiment in USA politicians, etc).

Google has no obligation to be politically neutral. Even if they wanted political neutrality, it’s often an impossible goal to achieve in practice.

Indeed. Corporations whose shareholders expect them to extract profits from all countries have to accept that they cannot be politically neutral. They must put profit ahead of principle.

Profits ahead of what principle?

It’s not virtuous to be neutral. Are you neutral on free speech? What does that even mean? Are you “neutral” on the oppression of women or lgbt people? On women in the workforce? On respect for the elderly?

Values are like accents. Only people who haven’t travelled can convince themselves that they don’t have an accent - or that their value system is somehow globally “neutral”.

I never suggested neutrality. Quite the opposite.

Yes, those of us who have traveled are quite aware that it would make sense to provide an option in the UI to show something other than what the local government wants us to see.

My point remains. Google has no other option. They obey the jurisdictions from which they derive profits.

no you are wrong - there are declared areas of dispute, and then those are also disputed. The world is a big place.

Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/world/europe/elon-musk-uk...

Where censorship is occurring, I think it would be better for Google to show that different representations exist and allow the user to pick from them. I realize they they cannot implement such a feature without losing out on revenue from at least one of those jurisdictions.

> allow the user to pick from them

This is basically what happens now because it goes by what the government says and the government is representative of the people.

You might be tempted to say oh but some governments are despotic and don’t represent the people. Sure maybe, but it’s not Googles place to determine when that is or isn’t true. And if did try to do that, I’m sure there be criticism of sowing revolution or something

We are in agreement that Google is limited by what is legal. This is what I originally wrote. If they want profits from both jurisdictions, they will not make a principled decision.

They are making a principled decision:

The principle is: follow the laws of the countries you operate in.

You seem to be under the impression that Google should be the arbiter of true moral right and subvert what Governments have decided for their nations.

That is not what I wrote.

Who is to say what the borders are? Making them suit the tastes of a locale isn’t necessarily evil.

I think you're wrong: what should Google have done here? Which country should Google take the side of? Arguably it's not ethically better to choose one country's self defined borders over another. Would Google be in the right to decide for themselves what the borders are?

Frankly I think it's very not-evil to show people what they expect to see. If my country adopts a time zone, I expect the times that I see to be in that timezone and not the one some company decided for me. If I look at a map, I want to see boundaries that are relevant. What if Google suggested I go to a place that was actually outside of my country's recognized borders and I couldn't reenter because I didn't bring appropriate documentation?

I guess what I'm saying is there's implicit evil in making a choice of which country to believe because nobody here is inherently right. And even if they did, showing citizens of X things which the people of X do not agree is correct is definitely not serving your users.

I am a citizen of the United States browsing from with the United States.

When I view the boundary between Ukraine and Russia, it shows me the dotted line around Crimea. I think it should indicate that there are at least two governments that have different ideas here and let me see their representation of the border. It should show me that it shows other people something different and make it easy to see what it shows them.

This is something a politically neutral Google would do. A Google that wants to get advertising money from both jurisdictions has no choice but to self-censor, as Google currently does. Google has made an understandable decision to put profit ahead of principles.

And in the case of India and Pakistan, where both countries have laws requiring the borders to be drawn in different specific ways? Just don't show borders at all? Make the product unavailable?

I am not saying that Google the corporation can do anything other than what it is doing, no matter how evil that might be interpreted by those who have lost loved ones to the Kashmir conflict.