Alphabet Inc. — Ethics Grade C

Alphabet Inc. receives an overall ethics grade of C (55/100) on CancelCo's corporate accountability database. Sector: Technology. Market cap: Large Cap.

Category scores

• labor: 55
• privacy: 30
• consumer: 40
• environment: 80
• humanRights: 50

Documented incidents (3)

• U.S. vs. Google Search Dominance (high, 2023) — The DOJ sued Google for maintaining a monopoly in search and search advertising through exclusionary deals with phone manufacturers to be the default search engine.
• Deceptive Location Tracking (high, 2022) — Settled with 40 states for $391.5 million after investigations found Google misled users into thinking they had turned off location tracking when data was still being collected.
• Firing of AI Ethics Researchers (medium, 2020) — Sparked controversy by firing Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell after they co-authored a paper highlighting risks and biases in large language models utilized by Google.

Documented good deeds

• 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Goal — Successfully matched 100% of global annual electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases.

Ethical alternatives

• DuckDuckGo — Does not track user data or create personal profiles for advertising.