In defense of Google, I once spoke up at a meeting and said that since they are a private company, they can run their business however they want. The immediate reply: "They're a public company. They went IPO months ago."
I let it go, but I have since stumbled across a concise explanation of the distinction, which I will post here for my own convenience.
No, Google is a public company. You see there's this obscure institution called the "stock market"...No, Google offered some shares to be exchanged on a particular market, making them a publically traded company, but they are in fact, a private entity all the same. In this short review of high school level Social Studies, the public sector is the Government, and the private sector is everything else. The unrelated term "publically traded" simply means that there are no buyer restrictions on who may own or trade their stocks. There is such a thing as stocks that are not publically traded as well.
Regardless of the trading of their stock certificates in the marketplace, Google does not gain some new requirement to rank companies/sites according to anyone elses wishes on how they should be ranked.
From a discussion thread on Slashdot, A great place to quickly gather the thoughts of hundreds of people on news and technology.
Comments (2)
I read and love Slashdot too, but I expected your last paragraph to read "Slashdot, a great place to quickly gather the thoughts of experts while wading through hundreds of immature rants and trolls."
The only element I feel was left out was the idea of publicly-trading companies have to deal with more accountability. I.e., publicly traded companies must comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and other SEC procedures that private companies don't.
And all companies are subject to public backlash for their public actions.
But other than that, I agree that they can run their business however they want.
Posted by Richard K Miller | March 20, 2006 12:22 PM
Posted on March 20, 2006 12:22
I *almost* typed the snide version of my comment about Slashdot. :o)
Posted by Tom | March 21, 2006 11:14 PM
Posted on March 21, 2006 23:14