Hacker News Reader

Google never removed "don't be evil", but that's a super common urban legend, because Gizmodo ran an (incorrect) story headlined "Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct". You can just go look at their code of conduct and see that this is false.

(I don't care, and don't think "don't be evil" really ever meant much, but urban legends drive me a little batty.)

View on HN

Interesting. I was even at Google when they "removed" it, I remember the internal uproar about "removing" it, and I was sure it was removed. Of course now you reminded me that the problem was "just" changing the "main" slogan to "do the right thing", and it was not actually removed. Funny how memories work.

Confirmed: search for "don't be evil" in the Code of Conduct here: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/. It's there at the end.

I never thought it was part of the code of conduct. I thought it was the answer to the business plan question before they decided on advertising or maybe their motto.

In that case they're definitely not honouring their code of conduct.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com