Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Google: Do as we say, not as we do (again)

What's Google's motto again? "Don't be evil"?

Well I wish they would change it to "don't be hypocritical".

When I wrote this column nearly a month ago, I pointed out the hypocrisy of Google CEO Eric Schmidt when he griped about the small RC drones being used by members of the public.

It's not like Google isn't peering over every fence on the planet with its Google Earth or StreetView services is it?

But now it seems they've taken another step in the "do as we say, not as we do" field.

This week, Google announced that is investing almost US$11m in a company that develops flight control computers for unmanned aerial "drones".

And we're not talking about those big military drones, we're talking about small systems -- in fact some of the drones involved weigh as little as 32g. Perfect for spying over your neighbour's fence perhaps?

Speculators are suggesting that Google is equipping itself for the legalisation of commercial drone operations in US airspace, which is scheduled for 2015.

I wonder how Mr Schmidt feels about his own organisation investing in these evil privacy-invading suburban spy drones?

Perhaps his concern is based more on the risk to Google's dominance -- if someone decides to create an open-source image database of the world, using armies of keen amateurs with their little multirotors or RC models. Indeed, such an offering may have definite benefits over Google's offering -- perhaps being updated as frequently as every week -- whereas Google Earth is often seen to use woefully out of date aerial photography.

If Google's motto truly is "don't be evil" and if, according to their CEO, these drones are evil -- there seems to be a bit of a disconnect here between what the company says and what it does.

Please visit the sponsor!

Have your say on this...

PERMALINK to this column

Oh, and don't forget today's sci/tech news headlines

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font