1. What philosophical principle did Google’s managers adopt when deciding that the benefits of operating in China outweighed the costs?
Google’s managers used the utilitarian philosophy, which is weighing good versus bad. Utilitarianism is committed to the maximization of good and the minimization of bad. Utilitarianism weighs carefully the social benefits and cost of a business action and to purse only the actions where the benefits outweigh the cost. Google’s managers evidently saw good margin for profit and it outweighed all other issues that may arise. According to the case study on page 154 China is a huge internet market with over 100 million users and still growing. Google decided to use self censorship into order to get into China. Google had to follow Chinese regulations that block some political sensitive topics. Google agreed to do this because of the profit potential, which seems to be an example of the Friedman doctrine which says that the only social responsibility of a company is to increase profits as long as the company stays within the rules of law. All of this does however go against googles mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally acceptable and useful.
2. Do you think Google should have entered China and engaged in self-censorship, given the company’s long-standing mantra “don’t be evil”? Is it better to engage in self-censorship than have the government censor for you?
Personally, I don’t think google should have entered China, because to do so they had to engage in self-censorship which compromised the mission that good has made millions on. This is the same as giving on person something that another can’t have. I am both sides of the fence with the second question asked. In one way I think it is better to engage in self-censorship and on the other hand I think it would have been better for the Chinese government to do it. If the...