Google: No Child Porn, No Evil and We're FCC Pioneers

Google has been in the news a lot lately regarding their advancements to combat child pornography, remaining on higher ground for corporate decisions and only bidding in the 700MHz Band FCC auction for the goodwill of everyone. I’ll share my perspective each piece.

Google: No Child Porn, SRSLY!

Google, with help from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), has announced they will be using new technology to improve the speed in identifying child endangerment (child porn) in images and video; ultimately leading to the swifter capture of criminals that exploit children. The technology that is being applied is what was used to enforce copyright infringement.

As one who would have to continually be on the hunt for teens baring it all (for their own safety, folks), I have to say their job will be a challenge. Teenagers seem to be maturing much faster and with the use of cosmetics, they can obscure their age quite easily. While this project has good intentions, I foresee a flurry of otherwise acceptable images would be de-indexed and forwarded to NCMEC for review, while the actual child porn floats around out there.

What about rights? If someone is searching for child porn (oh wait, “fantasies” of pre-teen sexual acts), will Google volunteer such information to police? What about training police on receiving this information and interpreting it properly? What about countries who aren’t members of INTERPOL? Google has been very vague (in the interest of obscurity for security). What about liability — does Google gain explicit immunity from future lawsuits?

Google: We’re Not Evil, ‘Just Let Shareholders Decide For Us’

The Internet empire uttered the motto, ‘Dont Be Evil‘ now steps back from that gray line citing that only the shareholders can control whether the company becomes evil or not. Google now has 16,000 employees; surpassing AOL’s maximum employees it had four years ago in a span of six years.

I can only imagine what a successful investor who has control of several thousand $500 shares would pick — Evil. Evil makes money, the dark side pays the bills, pays Congress, and keeps you in the clear with the SEC, right Henry?

I am firm believer that any company can define their morals and community interaction. So far, Google has been doing well on this front; but they shouldn’t loosen their core values just because Wall Street wants to make a dollar on your shares. I would much rather invest in a company that has good, consistent and strong virtues at its core.

Google: We Paid $4.6 Billion Dollars for the 700MHz Spectrum for Your Benefit.

Google, a company that pretty much dominated Internet search for several years, surreptitiously got into the radio frequency (RF) market and claims it’s for the goodwill of keeping the spectrum open. Now, Congress is raising Google’s intentions into doubt claiming they gamed the FCC into not having to be the highest bidder. Wait… how is it that you pay $4.6 billion dollars for a noble cause? C’mon, Google, we know what you’re up to.

The real solution here is to have the FCC split the spectrum equally in terms of bandwidth and just sell it as a flat rate so all the carriers get a chance. Yeah, it’s “socialist,” but selling 20MHz for billions is just bloody and the costs will be passed on to consumers later on — in a weakened economy, I might add.

Any thoughts, complaints or contribution? Let me know in the comments.