Reference no: EM131451489

Question: Software piracy.

Divide into two groups and prepare arguments for and against the following behavior: You run your own graphic design company as a one-person show, doing primarily small business projects and subcontracting work for larger graphic design agencies. You have just been hired as an adjunct instructor at the local community college to teach a graphic design course. You decide that it's easier to use your own laptop rather than worry about having the right software loaded on the classroom machines, and so the college IT department loads the most current version of your graphic design software on your machine. Business has been a little slow for you, and you haven't spent the money to update your own software. The version that the IT department loads is three editions ahead of your version with lots of new functionality. You enjoy teaching the class, although the position doesn't pay very well. One added bonus, however, is that you can be far more productive on your company projects using the most current version of the software on your laptop, and since you use some of that work as examples in your class, you're not really doing anything unethical, right?

Thinking Critically

STUMBLING OVER GMAIL

In spring 2004, with business booming and Google basking in the glow of its ever-growing popularity, Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] prepared to dazzle Internet users with a different kind of email. Building on the strong Google brand name, they called the new service "Gmail." . . . Larry and Sergey wanted to make a big splash with Gmail. There was no reason to provide the service unless it was radically better than email services already offered by Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and others. They built Gmail to be smarter, easier, cheaper, and superior. Otherwise Google users wouldn't be impressed, and its creators wouldn't be living up to their own high standards . . . [Larry and Sergey] had identifi ed email problems that Google, with its immense computing power, could address. For example, it was diffi cult, if not impossible, to fi nd and retrieve old emails when users needed them.

America Online automatically deleted emails after 30 days to hold down systems costs. There was no easy way to store the mountain of emails that an accumulative Internet user amassed without slowing personal computers or paying Microsoft, Yahoo, or another fi rm to provide additional storage. To blow the competition away and add a Google "wow" factor, Larry and Sergey and the Gmail team inside the Googleplex addressed all these issues and then some. To make the new service an instant hit, they planned to give away one free gigabyte of storage (1,000 megabytes) on Google's own computer network with each Gmail account. That was 500 times greater than the free storage offered by Microsoft and 250 times the free storage offered by Yahoo. . . . One gigabyte was such an amazing amount of storage that Google told Gmail users they would never need to delete another email.

Finally, to inject Gmail with that Googley sense of magic, computer users would be able to fi nd emails instantly, without ever having to think about sorting or storing them. A Gmail search would be fast, accurate, and as easy to perform as a Google search, making the service an instant hit among trusted employees who sampled it inside the Googleplex. Unlike most of its new products, Gmail was designed to make money even during the test phase. With demand for advertising increasing, the company needed to increase the available space it could sell. It made sense to Larry and Sergey to profi t from Gmail by putting the same type of small ads on the right-hand side of Gmails that Google put on the right-hand side of search results. The ads would be "contextually relevant," triggered by words contained in the emails. It was a proven business model that served advertisers and users well as part of Google's search results. By giving advertisers more space on the Google network, Gmail would provide a healthy new stream of profi ts for the company that would grow over time as the communications technology caught on.

Looking at the world through Google-colored lenses, this seemed like a superb idea in every respect. It didn't occur to Larry, Sergey, or any of the other engineers in senior roles at Google that serious people they respected would strenuously object to the privacy implications of having Google's computers reading emails and then placing ads in them based on the content of those messages. . . . As word spread of Google's plans to put ads in emails, politicians and privacy groups attacked the company and its plans, kicking off a media fi restorm. In Massachusetts, anti-Gmail legislation was introduced. Shocked privacy advocates urged the company to pull the product immediately and began circulating anti-Google petitions. One California lawmaker threatened the company, saying that if Google didn't dump Gmail, she would press for legislation banning it. Her bill passed the Senate's Judiciary Committee with only one opposing vote. She decried the ad-driven profiteering in emails as a gross, unwarranted invasion of privacy. For the fi rst time, Google was being viewed with suspicion in a major way. People considered their emails private, and the notion of Google's putting ads in them based on their content seemed to cross the line.

Because from their perspective this was much ado about nothing, Larry and Sergey saw no need to be defensive or respond to crazed critics. In fact, all the publicity would certainly heighten awareness of the Google search engine and its Gmail progeny. Soon enough, friendly columnists who tested Gmail and fell in love with it would begin writing about why the outcry was unjustified. Tradition-bound companies might have seriously considered pulling Gmail, at least temporarily, to quell the uprising. But this was Google, and it had clout, and confident leadership, to ride this out without fl inching. The founders began to respond on-message. "It sounded alarming, but it isn't," Sergey said. "The ads correlate to the message you're reading at the time. We're not keeping your mail and mining it or anything like that. And no information whatsoever goes out. We need to be protective of the mail and the people's privacy. Any Web service will scan your mail. It scans it in order to show it to you; it scans it for spam. All we're doing is showing ads. It's automated. No one is looking, so I don't think it's a privacy issue. I've used Gmail for a while, and I like having the ads. Our ads aren't distracting. They're helpful." When Google tested Gmail, people bought lots of things by clicking on the ads. To Larry, this was proof that computer users, advertisers, and Google's coffers were all well served by the small ads on the right-hand side of a Gmail. "Even if it seems a little spooky at first, it's useful," he said.