Here we go with the Yahoo third-quarter earnings call starring CEO Carol Bartz, who has some–in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo–‘splaining to do.

Yahoo turned in a much-needed solid quarterly earnings report, with slightly better-than-expected earnings, although still weak revenue.

Of course, there are all the takeover rumors, the exec departures and fights with partners such as China’s Alibaba Group.

2 pm PT: First on is the lovely investor relations lady, Marta, saying stuff I never pay attention to.

But Bartz came on right away and she sounded subdued and very much on script.

Good idea!

She began by explaining what she has been up to and–once again with feeling–exactly what Yahoo is.

“The key words are innovative, content, media and communications,” she stressed.

Technology is all well and good, but Yahoo is the “largest digital media, content and communications company.”

She also briefly addressed the departure of execs: “Some people leave, some get promoted and some good people arrive.”

Well, you could put such turmoil that matter-of-factly, I suppose.

Bartz then asked the question: “What have we done to re-engineer Yahoo?”

She reeled off a list she has repeated many times before, the point of which was to let us all know she has been mighty busy cleaning up the big mess she had to deal with on arrival.

So lay off, all you naysayers! It’s kind of like what President Barack Obama is saying these days, as he looks forward to huge political losses in the upcoming election.

It’s apparently a disciplined approach. “First you walk, then you run.” Then, she added, you FLY!

Don’t look down, Carol!

She promised to talk about what’s on all our minds–as in the takeover swirl related to AOL, News Corp. and a passel of private equity moneybags circling Yahoo.

2:15 pm: Time for the numbers from CFO Tim Morse, which you can see here.

He was much jauntier than usual. I wonder if that was in the script. Smile with your voice, Tim!

I mostly did not listen to this spiel, as it was a recount of the numbers I already read. But there are some nuggets.

Apparently, for example, revenue for owned and operated search is down because users are clicking on the really good new results from the Microsoft algorithmic search transition, so they are not clicking on paid search as much.

Hmmm….I wonder what happens when they get great.

Then it was on to earnings and stock repurchases, designed to goose the shares, which Yahoo considers undervalued.

So do investors.

Next, he moved on to the outlook, which was weak.

And Morse also noted the uncertainty that has to do with the search and online advertising alliance transition. “Caution is warranted,” said Morse.

“We’re pleased with our third-quarter results,” summarized Morse, seemingly ignoring the revenue issue.

2:31 pm: Bartz was then back on discussing the search alliance and the rocky relationship with China’s Alibaba Group. Rocky is my word and actually is also Alibaba’s.

At least all is well with Microsoft, Yahoo’s one-time nemesis.

It has been a big transition, of course, Bartz noted. Indeed.

Then Bartz went out of her way in praising Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, whom many sources said she has treated shabbily in the past.

It is “a good productive business relationship,” said Bartz.

Other than that, she politely suggested we all butt out of what Yahoo is going to do with the asset, a 29 percent stake of Alibaba.com worth $3.1 billion, according to the company.

Finally, Bartz said Yahoo had “potential” and promised a payoff to shareholders in the months ahead.

That would be nice.

2:38 pm: Time for Q&A.

The first question was about the search revenue growth. Soon!

The next was about search revenue and display advertising and a left-field query on engagement on smartphones.

Same answer, and also people will use Yahoo on any screen.

Next question was on display growth. Same answer.

Will any of these analysts ask the good questions about takeover rumors and other thorny management issues?

Wait, finally there came a sheepish request for clarification about the rumors–well, they are real, so realmors–about takeover plans by private equity folks, along with AOL’s Tim Armstrong.

“As tempting as it is to tell you what I really think, you know I can’t comment,” said Bartz, who really sounded like she wanted to comment.

Give in, Carol! In the words of Oscar Wilde, which is BoomTown’s operating motto: “I can resist everything except temptation.”

Nope, she will not utter a word about “hypothetical this and hypothetical that.”

Instead, the boilerplate: “We like our strategy, we like our progress, and that’s what we’re focused on.”

Next, more questions about revenue weakness. Bartz blamed it all on the drag of search revenue. “The main drag on our growth has been search revenue,” she noted.

She said it will get better once the whole transition kicks in.

Bartz did sound convincing, especially when she noted it was part of a six-year trend in decline in search. By the end of 2011, she promised, it will all be different.

But, in the immortal words of Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry”: “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

Now, a question about a “bloated” work force. Yahoo employee count is up seven percent, although costs are down 12 percent.

Morse: “No, we’re not bloated.”

Bartz took a question about competition in the display market, as in Yahoo is going to get smacked by rivals, such as Google.

“There is always competition and competition only makes us better,” said Bartz. “We’re running very fast and not going to give up this leadership in display very easily.”

Given Google’s inroads here, she better run faster than the Road Runner.

The last question was about monetization of mobile.

Lots of pretty, empty words from Bartz, especially since Yahoo does not have a really competitive offering compared to Google and Apple.

It should be added that both Google and Apple smoked it in terms of revenue growth in their quarterly earnings this week.

Also, I hear that Facebook social networking site is growing pretty quickly.

And it ended, with nary a decent question from Wall Street analysts about the clear turmoil at the long-troubled Silicon Valley icon and answers about what Bartz is going to do to address it.

The media is in listen-only mode for these calls, which is a shame, since I for one would love to listen to what Bartz has to say.

I know you’re busy and all, Carol, but perhaps you can talk over dinner soon?

In a post last week, BoomTown wrote that Cisco would introduce a consumer telepresence product.

It did today in San Francisco at a press event. It is called, inexplicably, “Umi” telepresence.

I’ll be honest, it sounds like the kind of sushi I typically refuse to eat, because I am not as adventurous as I like to pretend I am.

Actually, it seems to be a variation on you-me.

Get it? You and me and telepresence. As in “Star Trek” for non-geeks.

According to Wikipedia, here are some other definitions for the word:

“Umi may refer to: Umi, ‘sea’ in Japanese language; UMI, Universal Mobile Interface; Umi, Fukuoka, a town in Japan; Umi-a-Liloa, the king of the island of Hawaii; Umi Ryuzaki, a character in the fictional manga series ‘Magic Knight Rayearth’ by CLAMP.”

“Connect with a touch of the button,” is the motto for the giant Silicon Valley networking company for Umi.

And, frankly, I wish I could have telepresenced from my bed at home with it.

You can, using Umi with your existing high-definition television and high-speed broadband. It’s in three parts: A camera, a remote control and, ugh, yet another set-top box to pile on the rest on the shelf in your home living room, as you can see below.

Cisco said the device is scheduled to be available to consumers on November 14 in Best Buy (BBY) Magnolia Home Theater stores, as well as at bestbuy.com and umi.cisco.com “for the suggested retail price of $599 with a monthly fee of $24.99 for unlimited ?mi calls, video messaging and video storage.”

At the short and sweet event, Cisco execs touted their entry into the crowded consumer video-conferencing arena.

“It’s all about tasting the chocolate,” said Cisco exec Gina Clark about her box of Umi, which will work with Google Voice Chat–but not Skype and Apple (AAPL) iChat yet.

It also has the seal of approval from Oprah Winfrey, who will doubtlessly use it in some Oprah manner on her talk show.

Clark mentions tasting the chocolate several more times to knock the point home that if you try it, you’ll like it.

I can’t believe I ate the whole Umi!

Now, Cisco–which really is obsessed with the chocolate metaphor today–is making me have a chomp in a demo.

And, while I am no reviewer, it is pretty sweet, and looks great, well beyond what is available via Internet video chat.

Until the inevitable shaky video appears, here is the full press release from Cisco (CSCO):

Cisco umi Press Release

“We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the company’s decision to offer a censored version of its search services in China, Jan. 30, 2006

Evidently Google is taking its informal “don’t be evil motto” a bit more seriously these days. The search sovereign threatened late Tuesday to pull out of its operations in China after detecting a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [its] corporate infrastructure originating from China.” Targeted in the assault: The Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote in a post to the company blog.

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,” Drummond added. “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China? Hmm. What’s the Chinese word for “Bing”?

Drummond didn’t directly accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating the incursion, but he certainly seems to be implying there’s a link. And you’d think one would have to exist for Google (GOOG) to threaten pull out of a country that has more Internet users than the total population of the U.S.–even if its efforts to gain market share there haven’t met with the same success as in the rest of the world.

It’s tough to stake your claim in a country where the government favors the local rival and blocks your traffic if you fail to censor. Baidu’s share of the Chinese search market in the third quarter was 77 percent, up from 75.6 percent. Google’s share for the same period? Just 17 percent, down from 19 percent.

So, to some extent, Google can probably threaten to leave China because the country accounts for such a small portion of its revenue. On the other hand, China leads the world in Internet users and presents a hell of a market opportunity–large enough that Google willingly provided a censored version of its services as a prerequisite for doing business there. Or, rather, it used to.

At $395.50 Baidu shares are up more than two percent after hours on the news. Google shares are down 1.6 percent at $581.01.

Drummond’s post in full, below, as well as another on the safety of data on Google by Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise:

A new approach to China

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Keeping your data safe

Many corporations and consumers regularly come under cyber attack, and Google is no exception. We recently detected a cyber attack targeting our infrastructure and that of at least 20 other publicly listed companies. This incident was particularly notable for its high degree of sophistication. We believe Google Apps and related customer data were not affected by this incident. Please read more about our public response on the Official Google Blog.

This attack may understandably raise some questions, so we wanted to take this opportunity to share some additional information and assure you that Google is introducing additional security measures to help ensure the safety of your data.

This was not an assault on cloud computing. It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. While some intellectual property on our corporate network was compromised, we believe our customer cloud-based data remains secure.

While any company can be subject to such an attack, those who use our cloud services benefit from our data security capabilities. At Google, we invest massive amounts of time and money in security. Nothing is more important to us. Our response to this attack shows that we are dedicated to protecting the businesses and users who have entrusted us with their sensitive email and document information. We are telling you this because we are committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining your trust.

When Yahoo launched its massive advertising campaign–featuring the tagline, “It’s Y!ou”–earlier this fall with splashy events in New York and slick marketing rollouts all over the U.S., not everyone at the Internet portal loved it.

“It’s not M!e,” joked a longtime Yahoo (YHOO) exec to BoomTown in an email, one of many like it that I got from inside the company, all of which worried about whether the motto and ad effort had enough punch and point to get Yahoo back on track.

And, outside the company, several too-early reports purported to show that the $100 million campaign to revitalize the Yahoo brand was not working because it had not increased audience–although both Forrester Research (FORR) and Nielsen penned counterarguments.

In any case, none of the noise seems to have bothered the Silicon Valley-based Yahoo, whose execs say they are thrilled with the results so far. Thus, Yahoo is staying on message as it moves into the latest phase of the multiyear effort.

That includes adding to the overall brand promise more specific “product proof points” that focus on Yahoo’s “hero products,” such as search, email, homepage, mobile and more.

Yahoo’s new lead creative team at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has been working on the next direction, which will roll out after the new year and stress “relevance.”

The next push will include even more online advertising, as well as more outdoor branding. But it will also add guerrilla marketing, such as live demos at analog locations, from Internet cafes in Malaysia to senior citizen centers here in the U.S.

What’s not changing at all is the main brand declaration, as the message rolls out to more countries in the months ahead.

“We are committed to ‘It’s You,’ and it is a foundational element that will remain intact,” said Penny Baldwin, SVP of Yahoo’s global integrated marketing and brand management, in an interview with me. “Now we are going to be demonstrating and tuning the experience.”

Added Baldwin, who arrived at the company this summer: “The first chapter has been to root the brand position…since the image and stance was muddied in the past. Now, we are going to clarify our position.”

And that position is that Yahoo execs believe feedback from sales, consumers, employees and advertisers to the campaign has been largely positive and will goose its business.

More to the point, said Baldwin, the effort has started to show some results, especially in international markets such as India and the U.K, where the brand campaign first launched.

“Our main message has been to say that we have more of what you want and less of what you don’t want and showing relevance is working,” said Baldwin. “We are simply give it more meaning and more evidence, so consumers will spend more time with us.”

Baldwin points to several different and more recent polls, including from comScore (SCOR) and Nielsen, that do indeed show increases in Yahoo homepage engagement of three to five percent from September to October.

A Yahoo spokesman said that the company’s goal has been mostly to “increase engagement with U.S. audience (where we saw positive results in page views, time spent) rather than on unique visitors, which will take longer as we already have about 80 percent penetration.”

In less mature markets, the spokesman noted, both traffic and engagement are the goals.

As for any grumpy employees, the spokesman said a recent internal Yahoo survey showed that about 80 percent of employees responded favorably or very favorably to the brand, and another 13 percent were neutral.

(Apparently, that was the 13 percent who all emailed me!)

Most important, he said, Yahoo was sticking to its guns because it has seen “statistically significant lifts in ‘brand familiarity’ and ‘future brand usage.’”

That’s a fancy way of saying people are noticing the ads, which would be hard not to, since they are everywhere (including on this Web site).

And there will be more where that came from, said Baldwin, as the company leans further into its initial efforts at making consumers think again about Yahoo.

“This is a brand transformation issue,” said Baldwin flatly.

BoomTown–fresh from slapping around six graders caught in a Bing stupor and commenting on the use of restaurant-seeking vampires by Microsoft (MSFT)–is also not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant.

This time, it is coming from eBay (EBAY).

With the tagline, “Come to Think of It, eBay,” the ads start today, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, to “boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination.”

Interestingly, the new marketing campaign in print, television and online–the first for the Web commerce giant in 18 months–has been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo (YHOO).

Goodby, owned by the Omnicom Group (OMC), is known for its innovative ideas and has done such memorable campaigns as the Slowsky turtles for Comcast (CMCSA), the weird folk of Emerald Nuts, owned by Diamond Foods (DMND)–as well as campaigns for tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Adobe Systems (ADBE) and Netflix (NFLX).

Still, Goodby might be getting a little too cute here, because “Come to Think of It” could remind consumers exactly how much they have forgotten about eBay.

At best, “come to think of it” is a double-edged sword.

In a good scenario: “Come to think of it, I really haven’t listened to my ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ album in forever and I really want to hear it again.”

In a bad scenario: “An old girlfriend of mine is trying to friend me on Facebook–but, come to think of it, she was pretty freaky and I am very scared she found me again.”

You get the idea! Come to think of it: Play at home!

Actually, according to the Journal story, Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay’s marketplace operations, is pushing a different meaning of the phrase: “to shift the buyer perception of what eBay is today.”

The San Jose, Calif.-based company has to shift perceptions since it has seen its core marketplace business suffer, even as it has advertised less.

Here’s a video of one of the new ads, as well as some past ones–all of which include an unusual amount of Broadway-style singing, dancing and egregiously fabulous frolicking for a company led by then-CEO Meg Whitman.

But, come to think of it, Meg: Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

And, I could not resist adding at the end Weird Al Yankovic’s funny parody song about eBay, with video clips synched.

Enjoy:

“Come to Think of It, eBay”:

“On eBay”:

“That’s on, eBay”:

“Do It, eBay”:

“Found It on eBay” by Weird Al Yankovic:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091102/come-to-think-of-it-ebay-is-that-a-killer-ad-motto-or-a-desperate-plea-for-attention-plus-old-commericals/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoo-ad-campaign-creative-wed-like-to-see/ http://allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoo-ad-campaign-creative-wed-like-to-see/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:41:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18729

Yahoo introduced its new $100 million marketing and branding campaign in New York today with “It’s Y!ou” as the new motto, making use of the Internet giant’s famous exclamation point.

Sure, it’s clever and all, but BoomTown felt the need to jump in and help Yahoo (YHOO), since our posts have been a little tough when it has come to the Silicon Valley icon’s tumultuous ride over the last two years.

So, while CEO Carol Bartz (pictured above as a giant lady on the Nasdaq Jumbotron in Times Square) explained–as reported by MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka–that “Yahoo is the only site where you when you wake up in the morning and you want to know what’s going on everywhere about everything, you can find it one place,” I’d say there’s more to the brand that just that!

In fact, there’s Bartz herself, a sassy and ofttimes salty exec whose pugnacious utterances have become legend quickly.

Today, for example, when asked about a comparison with its search rival, she noted, “Why not be cynical about fricking Google?”

That was mild in comparison to her cursing me out at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference when she thought I was insinuating she was too old to be an Internet exec (you can see that exchange in the video below).

Thus, please take a gander at our branding effort for Yahoo below.

(While Yahoo has Ogilvy & Mather to do its work, ATD has the very clever Photoshop stylings of Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski to work our marketing magic.)

Best of all, you can switch out the picture and moniker to denote any Yahoo foe–Google (GOOG); Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer if he does not behave in the new search-partnership deal; billionaire investor and Yahoo board member Carl Icahn; and more!

Fondly dedicated to Carol–and the rest of the Yahoo crew, especially Judy–here’s our ad (click on the image to make it larger):

And here is Bartz in action at D7, cussing me out at 00:57 in the video of the interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoo-ad-campaign-creative-wed-like-to-see/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20080612/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil/ http://allthingsd.com/20080612/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:00:29 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080611/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil/

Now that Google (GOOG) has demonstrated that you can, in fact, make money without doing evil, it’s apparently willing to admit you can make even more without lending much credence to silly informal corporate mottos. Google’s moral relativism in quotations below.

2008

‘Don’t be evil’ is misunderstood. We don’t have an ‘Evilmeter’ we can sort of apply–you know–what is good and what is evil. … The rule allows for conversation. I thought when I joined the company this was crap… it must be a joke. I was sitting in a room in [the] first six months… talking about some advertising… and someone said that it is evil. It stopped the product. It’s a cultural rule, a way of forcing the conversation especially in areas that are ambiguous.”

–Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, June 11, 2008

It really wasn’t like an elected, ordained motto. I think that ‘Don’t Be Evil’ is a very easy thing to point at when you see Google doing something that you personally don’t like; it’s a very easy thing to point out, so it does get targeted a lot.”

–Google VP Marissa Mayer, April 15, 2008

2006

Many, if not most, of you here know that one of Google’s corporate mantras is “Don’t be evil.” Some of our critics–and even a few of our friends–think that phrase arrogant, or naïve or both. It’s not. It’s an admonition that reminds us to consider the moral and ethical implications of every single business decision we make.”

–Google VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs Elliot Schrage, Feb. 15, 2006

We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

–-Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the company’s decision to offer a censored version of its search services in China, Jan. 30, 2006

2005

I think it’s much better than Be Good or something. When you are making decisions, it causes you to think. I think that’s good.”

–Google co-founder Larry Page, “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” 2005

2002

Evil is what Sergey says is evil.”

–-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, December 2002

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080612/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080612/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20080612/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil-2/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:00:29 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080611/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil/

Now that Google (GOOG) has demonstrated that you can, in fact, make money without doing evil, it’s apparently willing to admit you can make even more without lending much credence to silly informal corporate mottos. Google’s moral relativism in quotations below.

2008

‘Don’t be evil’ is misunderstood. We don’t have an ‘Evilmeter’ we can sort of apply–you know–what is good and what is evil. … The rule allows for conversation. I thought when I joined the company this was crap… it must be a joke. I was sitting in a room in [the] first six months… talking about some advertising… and someone said that it is evil. It stopped the product. It’s a cultural rule, a way of forcing the conversation especially in areas that are ambiguous.”

–Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, June 11, 2008

It really wasn’t like an elected, ordained motto. I think that ‘Don’t Be Evil’ is a very easy thing to point at when you see Google doing something that you personally don’t like; it’s a very easy thing to point out, so it does get targeted a lot.”

–Google VP Marissa Mayer, April 15, 2008

2006

Many, if not most, of you here know that one of Google’s corporate mantras is “Don’t be evil.” Some of our critics–and even a few of our friends–think that phrase arrogant, or naïve or both. It’s not. It’s an admonition that reminds us to consider the moral and ethical implications of every single business decision we make.”

–Google VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs Elliot Schrage, Feb. 15, 2006

We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

–-Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the company’s decision to offer a censored version of its search services in China, Jan. 30, 2006

2005

I think it’s much better than Be Good or something. When you are making decisions, it causes you to think. I think that’s good.”

–Google co-founder Larry Page, “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” 2005

2002

Evil is what Sergey says is evil.”

–-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, December 2002

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080612/a-battle-of-good-vs-dont-be-evil-2/feed/ 0