Google Feeling a Little Sicko

During its short but meteoric ascent, web search leader Google has carefully cultivated a benevolent corporate image. From its philanthropic campaigns to improve public health and combat global warming, to its "best company to work for" status, to its famous corporate slogan, "Don't be evil," the firm has gone to great lengths to appear as warm and fuzzy as the bean bag chairs that adorn its offices.

But occasionally Google inadvertently reminds people that for all the lava lamps, organic lunches, and high-minded talk about making the world's information universally accessible, the company's primary motivation is cold hard cash.

Just such a stark incident occurred over the weekend when a Google employee published an official blog posting about Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko suggesting that the health care industry could use Google's ad network to combat "negative press" and burnish its reputation in the public eye.

"Whatever the problem," wrote Google Health Account Planner Lauren Turner, "Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message."

The upshot was clear: Google stands ready and willing to help the $2 trillion health care industry do for its image what scores of "greenwashing" ad campaigns have done for the petroleum industry.

"Apparently there is a cure to the Sicko ailment, and it involves spending money with Google," TechCrunch's Duncan Riley wrote.

The suggestion that the health care industry buy Google ads using the keyword Sicko to combat the film's negative portrayal of it reminded Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow of the shopworn PR strategy of using "fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD)" to discredit corporate threats.

"Why make your customers healthier -- at shareholder expense -- when you can just give money to Google to FUD and astroturf the issue?" asked Doctorow.

To be fair, Sicko, an unabashed polemic, offers a one-sided, though largely accurate, portrayal of the state of the U.S. health care system. Just don't go to the film expecting to hear much positive about American health care.

Still, it struck many as odd that Google would so quickly and publicly offer its services to Moore's quarry -- HMO's and Big Pharma -- against the backdrop of an escalating, highly political, propaganda war.

"There is no way anyone who's blogged or worked in PR for more than, say, a week would post something like that on a corporate blog," inveighed Michael Arrington. "Millions of Americans have a serious problem with the way health care is handled in this country, and such a polarized topic is hardly one in which a company like Google wants to take a stand."

"I'm betting that Lauren Turner's job duties at Google will no longer include blogging," he added.

Turns out the kerfuffle may have been caused by a new Googler's overeager enthusiasm. Turner, a 2004 Princeton grad, quickly responded by claiming ex post facto that the views expressed were hers and not Google's.

"[S]ome readers thought the opinion I expressed about the movie Sicko was actually Google's opinion," Turner wrote, "because after all, this is a corporate blog."

Google's "opinion," it turns out, is that "advertising is a very democratic and effective way to participate in a public dialogue."

How warm and fuzzy.

by Sam Gustin