Chapter 4 | Question 3 | Google's Cloud: Building Data Centers the Hold Everything Ever Written

[sandra vega carrero]

3. When developing their own web browser “Chrome” there was some discussion about whether the development of Chrome was a betrayal of the understanding they had with Mozilla’s Firefox. Was this development gainst Google’s "do no evil” policy. Do you think Google lived up to its company policy in its dealings with Mozilla? Why or Why not?

[Christopher Simpson]

I dont think that Google creating Chrome separately from Firefox was evil to begin with because both were created with a different purpose and use in mind. In the reading, it said that Google  was funding firefox to make sure Google was the main search engine. Their interest in Firefox since the beginning had been to further their business interests, not to be nice. So then there was no surprise when the chairman of the Mozilla foundation said "“I expect Google to pursue its economic interests. I have never had illusions. We’re not a toy. Google doesn’t control us.”

The evil part of the plan was the targeted adwords that they used to try and take away the market share they helped create. In some ways, the creation of Firefox was just a way to get people away from Internet Explorer and to something else that google could then use to create themselves. Google was the main contributor to the Mozilla project from 2004 until 2014, so in a sense, it is just Google doing what they wanted with what they payed for.  Mozilla got their money through a deal they made with Google that gave Mozilla money from the search revenue that its users generated.