Abstract:

Ethics are important in an industry. However, it can be evaluated through any forms such as a report or a business memo. Business memos are one of the important forms of communication in any industry. Memos are used to be direct and attempt to prove a point. Some memos can be referred as an employee update. Some memos can be an evaluation. In this memo, it will be breaking down Google’s ethics in a business memo format.

Memorandum

To: Professor Michael Coppola

From: Melson Heo

Date: 2//24/20

Subject: Evaluation of Google’s Code of Ethics

Before working for a company, there are ethics and regulations that are placed in working environments. For the company to run in an efficient and effective manner, the workers have to comply with these ethics. For this memo, it will be evaluating the components of Google’s code of ethics and how it can be improved.

Google is known to be one of the greatest search engines ever created. However, Google is constantly improving their products by gathering employees with great intellectual ideas. With the code of ethics displayed, workers have to comply with these ethics. In their code of ethics, Google divides them into 7 sections with implications on how Google runs their company.

Section one explains how Google expects how the employees should interact and communicate. They expect these qualities from each employee, the company expects integrity, usefulness, privacy/security, responsiveness, and taking initiatives. Section two explains how each employee should behave and support each other in the work environment. Section three indicates that personal interest should not interfere with any course of action for Google. Section four and five indicates the confidentiality and protection of other’s information and work confidentiality. Section six indicates how a worker should be held responsible for their actions regarding finances, contracts, and records. Section seven indicates the laws that the employees have to obey such as competition laws and dealing with government officials. However, some of the sections had few flaws that can be pointed out among the seven sections.

Some of the flaws that Google’s code of ethics had were their dog policy and Google’s terms of privacy. One flaw was the dog policy from section 2. The dog policy indicates that, “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.” This is a biased statement due to it not being fair to people who love cats or people who are allergic to dogs. Although Google ensured “fairness” amongst employees, they were biased for dog people according to the policy. Another flaw was the privacy that was not really clear. It states that, “Always remember that we are asking users to trust us with their personal information. Preserving that trust requires that each of us respect and protect the privacy and security of that information.”. When this is stated, it is unknown how trustworthy Google can be, especially dealing with employee’s personal information. It is not stated clearly on how they are going to retain the information. 

Although Google has some bias and flaws throughout their code of ethics, it was a somewhat developed code of ethics overall. It does need some editing for clearance and removal of potential bias to provide an environment where people do not feel bias. However, there is always some need for updating in all codes of ethics for a stable company to function. Thank you for taking some time to read this. I hope to hear from you again soon.