Unethical Practice in Google's Partnership with Chinese Government

This report discusses the unethical practice of Google partnering with the Chinese government to develop a censored search engine. It explores the ethical issues, theories, and possible solutions to this case.

Running head: UNETHICAL PRACTICE
UNETHICAL PRACTICE
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

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Introduction:
The aim of this report is to discuss the importance of ethical practices important for
the business success. This report will be discussing the incident initiated by Google in China.
Ethics is important for business because gives the business organisation power and support of
the stakeholders to work any part of the world. Previously the company had stopped working
in China due to the same reason when the government started to hack and crack down the
free speech. Now the company has been partnering with the Chinese government and worked
on building a search engine. This search engine known as Dragonfly has been designed for
hiding the search result which the authoritarian government of China wants to suppress.
However, this is not known to the employees working in china hence they have expressed
their dissatisfaction against the policies of the company. This report will discuss the ethical
issue of this chosen case, ethical theories matching with the case, Kline’s criteria why
stakeholders to should take responsibility and critical solution.
Ethical issues in case study:
It has been pointed out in the case study that Google has been using a spying tool for
the Chinese government and the employees do not have any idea about this secret and
censored search engine for this country. In this regard more than 14000 Google employees
had demanded answer for this unethical practice initiated by the Global renowned company
Google and expressed their concern that it has been violating its ethical principles especially
its motto ‘Don’t be Evil’. This search engine known as Dragonfly has been designed for
hiding the search result which the authoritarian government of China wants to suppress
(Conger and Wakabayashi 2018). The features of this particular search engine can also track
the location of the users and share their search history with the Chinese partner. This partner
of Google in China would have and unilateral access to the data along with the telephone

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number. This has created question about the ethical business process by Google among the
employees as well as the international Human Rights groups. The company has not initiated
any official statement to answer the claims of the employees and other stakeholders who have
accused Google for its unethical behaviour (Conger and Wakabayashi 2018). According to
the human rights groups of the world this initiative or unethical practices by Google in China
will complicit in the Chinese government act of repression of freedom speech as well as
human rights in the country.
As a response to this claim by the employees and the Human Rights organisations of
the world the company has not announced anything publicly rather changed the topic by
focusing on their investigation of developing Android through the mobile apps like Google
Translate and Flies go. Without answering the demand of the employees the company has
ordered to delete all the saved copies of that memo accusing the company to actually build
and implement such secret search engine for the Chinese government. These are the reasons
why the employees are accusing Google to lose its moral compass while operating in China.
Previously the company had stopped working in China due to the same reason when the
government started to hack and crack down the free speech. Google had left that large market
of 1.3 billion customers as a gesture of protest however the company has been doing the same
with the customers by partnering with the Government of China without thinking about the
ethical policies and morality is associated with the business.
Two ethical theories:
In the ethical decision making process, two most important ethical theories can be
discussed in this particular case of Google operating in China. These theories include virtue
ethics and deontological ethics. The moral philosophies contrast the individuals and
characters whose decision, actions and behaviour are unusual and unbalanced (Niebauer
2016). The virtue ethics as discussed by Aristotle, revolves round the process of becoming a

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better person in life. In this ways, the virtue ethics when applied to the companies can guide
them to develop to have good and positive reputation (Pearson 2017). This particular theory
aims to point out the fact that each and every person of the world if aim to be a better person,
the world will be a better place and more productive with having moral environment for
living.
In the case of Google it is having a bad actions which it is hiding from its employees.
This particular actions of hiding the information from the staffs of the company especially
when they have the right to know every action of the company. This process of maintaining
total secrecy about dragonfly has made the employees to be very bothered as they thought
that they are being associated with something very evil. Virtue ethics in this case can be
applied inductively to the problems then draw conclusion from specific observations (Smith
2017). This philosophy therefore mandates that Google must be clear in their knowledge
sharing process and based on this moral philosophy, Google can operate in the global market
more ethically and gain support from the employees. Google must follow the justice virtue
which mandates the company to operate fairly and equitably with other. The limitation of this
set of virtue is that no company while competing in a market can maintain this set of virtue
all the time. In order to attend one stakeholder other will definitely suffer.
Similarly, according to the deontological ethics relates to the duty or obligations
towards the ethics. In deontological philosophies the most important theorist is Immanuel
Kant who developed this theory and connected his philosophy with ethics which need to be
followed by the individuals and organisations. There are three categorical imperatives related
to this theory. First, the moral philosophies must not be dependent on the particular
conditions. Secondly, each rational decision or action must be the end or final. The third
categorical imperative is the will must also regard those laws as if others are bound by the
laws. The limitation of this theory relates to its inflexibilities. The First Formulation is

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Formula of Universality and the Law of Nature, the Second Formulation is The Formula of
Humanity and the Third Formulation: The Formula of Autonomy. It is a framework based on
which the individuals within which decisions affective concrete situation are to be made.
According to this theory, the rules bind the persons with the duties which is commonly
contrasts to the consequentialism. In this particular framework, the people are associated with
the predefined sets of policies and rules which help them to hold the proper functioning of the
system. In the case of Google, despite the fact that it has a clear motto stating ‘don’t be evil’,
but does not have a clear set of rules to fight the corruption at such level. Both of these
theories are related with the balance of actions and moralities of the companies and make
those aligned with the actions right or wrong to the company under a set of rules rather than
focusing on the consequences of the actions.
Kline’s criteria for taking responsibility:
The case of Google’s secret operation in China for working in the support of
developing a search engine and keeping surveillance on the use of internet have been
revealed. In this regard, Kline’s criteria for taking responsibility can be discussed. In this
respect the causality and capability are the two variables are seen. The complicity relates to
the three factors like direct, beneficial and silent. These all relates to the causation, awareness
and knowledge, and proximity. According to this particular policy, the stakeholders
associated with this specific case need to take the full responsibility of what they have done
(Han 2015). In this unethical business practice by the global technological giant Google. In
this particular case of Google, the stakeholders, associated with this unethical actions are the
management of the company who knew about this secret program and developing it, the
employees working in the branch of China voicing against Dragonfly project, the customers
who are being cheated by the actions, the government of China and the human rights
associations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders,

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the Committee to Protect Journalists of the world. According to this particular policy all of
these stakeholders must take responsibilities for taking measures against the unethical
operation of the company. This is related to the corporate social responsibilities of the
company to world ethically and make the employees know about the matter clearly and work
for supporting the interest of the customers (Hutchings2018).
Here the government of China also needs to make ethical decision in dealing with the
human rights of the citizens of the country. It is employing Google for enhancing the spying
initiative within the country. From the part of the management, the employees instead of
detailing the reason of such conduct, it is asking for deleting such messages so that the
employees of the branches in other parts of the world do not get assimilated with this
movement by the employees of China. Now the company needs to take responsibilities
properly and maintain the image in the global scenario.
Possible solutions or recommendations:
As Google has taken an unethical initiative for operating in the market of China, it
needs to be effectively find out the solution of this problems. The actions must be supportive
of the interest of the employees as well as customers of the Chinese market. Along with the
company, the stakeholders also take initiatives to manage this situation and how the company
is effectively mitigating the situation.
Firstly, the company needs to be more prompt in taking actions against the unethical
actions initiated by a small group of managers working in the market of China. The higher
authority for instance the boards of directors in Google are not being paying attention to the
maintenance of the business according to the regulations and policies of the country.
Therefore, they need to be stricter in this regard. The company policies in the branches which
are operating in the foreign market, need to be stricter. The surveillance process and

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connection among the headquarters of the company and the other subsidiaries operating in
the different parts of the world need to be more strong so that every changes in policies and
decision making process can be known to one another. The collaboration with the
government of China might be known to the CEO of Google and this is negatively affecting
his image in the international market so also of his company. This method of having stricter
rule will help the company to work more ethically in the market of China and maintain the
reputation in the market.
Secondly, the communication of the management with the employees are need to be
effective and transparent. In this case, the employees did not know anything about the secret
programing of Dragonfly project so that they do not put pressure on the company. In this
regard, the company needs to address the problem more efficiently. The company needs to
communicate with the employees about this matter through conferences and employee
meetings. There can be proper feedback method through which the employees will be sharing
their views to the higher authority and make them understand why the company is taking
such measures.
Thirdly, the company must has a more transparent regulations and policies so that the ground
level employees can access the higher authority more effectively. Finally the company needs
to involve media and other agencies relating to the human rights aspects so that the
corruption level can be reduced.
Fourthly, the projects like Dragonfly must be prevented immediately. The decision making
process of the company needs to be more flatter and involve more employees.
Finally, the stakeholders like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters
without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists of the world need to be very
efficient to reach the roots of this type of news and investigate such matters properly.

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Google’s connection with the Chinese government is not only affecting the image of the
company but also that of the country. It is unethical to employ Google to keep watch of the
citizens as well as their personal matters. It is complete against the human rights of the people
of any part of the world and act against the acceptable guidelines of the duties of the
government of a country. In order to mitigate this issue, these stakeholders can make the
people more socially aware about the negative measures taken by the government of China.
Critical evaluation:
The possible solutions of this case that mandate the company first to address the root
cause of the problem that is related to the desire to expand the business of Google in entire
China with the help of the Chinese government, second to address the problem properly at
present and finally to prevent this type of incident in the future. These solutions can be
critically analysed under the light of ability and inability of the stakeholders associated with
the company as well as the authority.
Firstly, the higher authorities of the company are not communicating to the employees
rather pressurizing them to delete the email containing this unethical practice by Google from
their computers. The company has utilised Pixel trackers to find out the persons associated
with this employee movement within the workforce and the time they have accessed this
email. In this regard, the authorities need to be more efficient to follow the company policies
regarding the employee rights and address the grievance more professionally.
Secondly, the fact that the company has been partnering with the government of
China and working on the project for enhancing surveillance on the citizens unethically may
not be unknown to the CEO and other board of directors. Most probably, they had the
information about this type of collaborative measures with the government and they did not
want to lose the opportunity to gain trust of the country for capturing the market.

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Hence the employees, customers and other stakeholders like journalist groups operating in
China need to be more effective to grow awareness and prevent such incident to happen
again.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that the global company like Google has been
indulging in the unethical behaviour by partnering with Chinese government. The initiative to
work with Chinese government and increasing surveillance in the country, has not been
addressed the issue properly and informed the employees in such a manner that they do not
express grievance against the company. The theories like deontological ethics and virtue
ethics can effectively guide the company to work in more ethical way. The stakeholders like
the employees, other human rights organisation also need to come forward and convince the
company to work in an ethical way do that they do not create a negative image in the minds
of their customers.

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References:
Conger, K. and Wakabayashi, D. 2018. Google Employees Protest Secret Work on Censored
Search Engine for China. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/technology/google-employees-protest-search-
censored-china.html [Accessed 19 Mar. 2019].
Pearson, R., 2017. Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the
idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.
Smith, R.S., 2017. Virtue ethics and moral knowledge: philosophy of language after
MacIntyre and Hauerwas. Routledge.
Niebauer, M., 2016. Virtue ethics and church planting: A critical assessment and reevaluation
of church planting utilizing Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. Missiology, 44(3), pp.311-
323.
Han, H., 2015. Virtue ethics, positive psychology, and a new model of science and
engineering ethics education. Science and Engineering Ethics, 21(2), pp.441-460.
Hutchings, K., 2018. Global ethics: an introduction. John Wiley & Sons.
Grant, P., Arjoon, S. and McGhee, P., 2017. Reconciling Ethical Theory and Practice:
Toward Developing a Business Ethics Pedagogical Model. Business and Professional Ethics
Journal, 36(1), pp.41-65.