as someone personally torn over the whole “do they really mean it?” question when it comes to google and their mantra to not be evil, i am heartily amused (and also rather impressed) by this.

it’s a site that aggregates google-related news items and asks visitors to vote on how evil each report makes them think that google is, and then it tracks google’s average evil rating over time.

it sounds kind of like a funny way to let off steam at first, but i think there are glimmers of real meaning underneath some of the information. it interests me to learn, for example, that google scores 4% evil when it comes to this blog post, which states that google will fight the feds’ request for search data tooth and nail; 12% evil when it comes to an earlier post at searchenginewatch saying that google won’t comply (with the same request – it’s hot news in searchtown today, i tell you whut) but msn will (so how evil are they?) , and 34% evil when it comes to a newspaper article discussing yesterday’s announcement that google is venturing into radio (or at least radio ads).

sure, there are real questions to be asked about who comes to a site like this – geeks, and probably only those on either side of the spectrum of opinion, but i think that the relatively simple way of gathering input on different issues and then displaying the aggregate data is pretty neat, and not to be discarded out of hand.

i’ll probably check back at least a few more times as my own angels and demons duke the matter out on my shoulders.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at 4:48 pm and is filed under links, web commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.