Google has long claimed to follow its own set of commandments, or what it calls "Ten Things".  On the company's corporate website, the first page under the "Philosophy" section takes you to a list of things that Google "has found to be true".  Those ten things are:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.

When a company publishes something like this it's akin to telling the world that these are the rules under which the company functions.  That's all nice and good when the company decides to follow its own set of commandments.  But when a company (read Google) says one thing and does another, it deserves to be called out on those fallacies.  Follow the link above and pull up your own copy of the company's ten things so you can follow along with me.

Google is breaking its own Ten Commandments.  If you need proof, continue reading:

Focus on the user and all else will follow

Under this rule Google has outlined four additional principles that define how it focuses on its users.  They say the interface should be "clear and simple".  Over time, Google's interface is getting more cluttered and more cluttered.  They're adding links to this and links to that all over the place.  Depending on the search you're doing, it's sometimes very easy to get distracted away from them search results.  They also say that placement inside the search results is never sold to anyone.  Again, that's not entirely true.  As part of the deal that gave Google a 5% stake in America Online, AOL was given the right to place graphical ads inside Google search results.  We haven't seen them yet.  And we might not ever see them.  But Google did, in fact, sell ad placement inside the search results.  Finally, they say that the ads on the Google site can't be a distraction and have offer relevant content.  The "tips" that have been showing up atop the SERPs 1) are a distraction with their icons (some of the only icons you'll ever see on a Google page) and 2) aren't always relevant.  If I do a search for "blog directory" I'm looking for other blogs.  I don't want to start my own with Blogger and that should be apparent from the search terms.  But Google doesn't care.

It's best to do one thing really, really well

The first statement under this section says "Google does search."  That's not at all true anymore.  Sure, Google does search.  But they've branched out into directions that have nothing to do with search.  For example, tell me how the following products should be considered "search products":

• Google Secure Access
• Picasa
• YouTube
• Gmail
• Google Reader
• Google Newspaper Ads
• Google Audio Ads
• Google Television Ads (being tested overseas)

Just because you throw a search box into a product does not make it a search product.  None of the Google services I just listed are "search products".  They might have a Google search box in them.  But at their core, they have nothing at all to do with search.  And for a company that says "do one thing really, really well", that's fishy.  They need to amend this commandment to state "Google does money", because that's what the company is all about.  Need proof?  In the paragraph that ends their first commandment, Google says "[Our] growth has come not through TV ad campaigns".  And what are they doing now?  That's right… working on ways to sell TV ads.  They're playing both sides of the fence and saying "TV ads don't do anything for us but, hey, you need them and we're going to be the ones to sell them to you."  They say TV ads didn't do anything for them because their product was so good that word-of-mouth was all it took.  While that's largely true, they obviously think they're alone in the stellar product arena because the rest of us need to buy TV ads from them.

Fast is better than slow

First of all, the things that Google has been adding to their SERPs do not speed things up.  They slow things down.  It is true that they are very conscious of the size of their files and products.  In fact, they became concerned when Google Maps grew to expand past the 100 KB mark.  But again, they're playing both sides of the fence here.  They want their websites to be speedy.  But they don't care if one of their products has the potential to bring the internet to slow, grinding crawl.  Google Web Accelerator starts downloading every linked-to page on a site as soon as a user visits the site.  Even if they never click on another link, Web Accelerator will start downloading and caching linked pages to a user's computer automatically.  Luckily, Web Accelerator isn't as popular as some other Google products.  Can you imagine what would happen to the internet pipelines if everyone was using Web Accelerator and automatically downloading millions and millions of pages in the background?  There wouldn't be enough bandwidth left for the rest of us.  That would certainly fall under the "slow" category.

Democracy on the web works

Oh really, Google?  Tell that to China.  Google began censoring results displayed to Chinese citizens in a deal with the Chinese government after the country threatened to block access to Google.  Now how democratic is that?  They also talk about their PageRank technology in this section and how it uses inbound links to help determine the rank a page gets on the SERP.  But it never says anything about "gaming" and manipulating the system.  It never says that you can't fiddle with PageRank.  As soon as you do, however, you'll be removed from Google altogether.  Again, I also mention the "tips" Google displays.  There's no democracy there, either.  If they really believed democracy on the web works they'd let the web decide where their products deserve to be displayed on the SERP.  They wouldn't bypass the whole system and plug their own products on top of all others.

You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer

I'll be honest… I don't know enough about this one to really comment.

You can make money without doing evil

Yesterday I wrote about Google Desktop and the procedure it uses to make files accessible across computers.  In a nutshell, Desktop uploads your private files to a Google server without explicitly stating that it's going to do that.  Now let me think.  What do we call it when someone takes something that doesn't belong to them without asking?  Oh yeah.  We call it theft.  That's pretty evil.  What about the deal with China?  How much more evil can you get than making deals and partnering with communist regimes?  No more playing the role of Saint for Google.  This section of the Google truths also contains a paragraph on advertising and says that it is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link".  Do a search for "blog" and then tell me that the "tip" advertising Blogger is clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link".

There's always more information out there

Google has taken this commandment a little too far.  I also wrote about the use of Google Code search to find holes in private web-servers that can be exploited and hacked.  Shoemoney.com was hacked using just that procedure.  Google is indexing files and information that it has no business accessing let alone indexing.  Google could easily identify the pretty standard search strings that people use to find these exploits.  There are, at most, a dozen or so strings that hackers use to take advantage of Google's thirst for information.  Why hasn't Google blocked those searches yet?  They've implemented a phishing block.  Why not an exploit block?  It would be a great service to website owners everywhere to keep prying eyes out of their personal files.  I know what you might be asking.  What if I'm searching for that stuff to find out how to fix it?  The page that Google displays to block the search results could easily provide links to solutions for the exploits instead of links to people's vulnerable files.

The need for information crosses all borders

Except the Chinese border!

You can be serious without a suit

I can't verify any of the information in this section as it deals primarily with life at the Googleplex.  I'll leave it alone.

Great just isn't good enough

This section begins with the statement "always deliver more than expected".  Google hasn't done that in a very long time.  Most of it's new products aren't best of breed.  They don't always even deliver the bare minimums.  Google Code just gained the ability to offer developers the option of posting files for download this month.  Tell me how a service that aims to make software development easy could "deliver more than expected" when you can't even post downloadable files to it?  Some of Google's products are so bad that they've lost out to Yahoo (Google Answers).  Google's new approach to delivery is to release beta products way too soon and then shove them down user's throats by way of "tips" on the SERPs.  At any given time, half of the products that Google pushes out the door are in beta status and some of them have existed for MONTHS as betas.  How is that great and how is that delivering more than expected?

Conclusions and Final Thoughts

I think it's time Google revisited their "Ten Things" page.  Maybe these were the rules that the company was founded on, but they are certainly not the guiding principles of the company any longer.  A direct quote from Google seems to fit here:

While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value.  Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site.

Now tell me, Google… do you think that is still true?