Don't Be Evil

Google's official Don't Be Evil policy seems similar to other corporate behavior policies, except for the part about allowing dogs.  The main difference seems to be that it is written in a more casual manner.

The long version of this policy may be a significant change from the early days of the company, when "Don't Be Evil" was described in a 2001 Wired magazine article as "What Sergey says is evil." 

At the time, the article went on to say:  "Most major companies refer to a detailed code of corporate conduct when considering such policy decisions. General Electric devotes 15 pages on its Web site to an integrity policy. Nortel's site has 34 pages of guidelines. Google's code of conduct can be boiled down to a mere three words: Don't be evil."

The current Google Code of Conduct is more than 6,000 words, and about 11 pages long, depending on formatting.  As was already starting to happen when the 2001 Wired article was written, things have gotten significantly more complicated for Google as it has grown.

The phrase may have been been coined by an engineer in the company several years earlier, but it gained official status in the eyes of the business world during Google's IPO.

The motto is a positive one, although it is somewhat limited.  Don't Be Evil is not the same as Be Good.

This Management Today article from March 1, 2007 takes the argument a step further:

Slogan Doctor: Google - Don't Be Evil.
Look at Google's investor relations pages, under 'Google code of conduct', and you find a reference to its famous 'informal corporate motto'. The code itself takes 5,500 words, the slogan just three. At a meeting in July 2001, a dozen or so of the search engine giant's first employees were thinking about 'core values'. An engineer called Paul Buchheit announced that everything they had been talking about could be summed up in one phrase: 'Don't be evil'. The slogan stuck. Evil is one of the most resonant words in our language, making this phrase stand out from the usual corporate platitudes, especially in the US, land of witch-burning, evangelism and Star Wars. In the early days, not being evil seemed simple. But now that Google has to deal every day with tyrants, pornographers, neo-Nazis and sellers of comedy ringtones, the slogan is almost a liability. Almost, but not quite: note that it prohibits being evil but not doing evil. Which suggests that Google, while convinced of its own righteousness, will do what's good for Google.