"Don't be evil" is a phrase used in Google's corporate code of conduct, which it also formerly preceded as a motto.
Following Google's corporate restructuring under the conglomerate Alphabet Inc. in October 2015, Alphabet took "Do the right thing" as its motto, also forming the opening of its corporate code of conduct.[1][2][3][4][5] The original motto was retained in Google's code of conduct, now a subsidiary of Alphabet. In April 2018, the motto was removed from the code of conduct's preface and retained in its last sentence.[6]
The motto was first suggested either by Google employee Paul Buchheit at a meeting about corporate values that took place in early 2000[7] or in 2001[8] or, according to another account, by Google engineer Amit Patel in 1999.[9] Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out", adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent".[7]
While the official corporate philosophy of Google[10] does not contain the words "Don't be evil", they were included in the prospectus (on Form S-1) of Google's 2004 IPO (a letter from Google's founders, later called the "'Don't Be Evil' manifesto"): "Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains."[11] The motto is sometimes incorrectly stated as Do no evil.[8][12]
"Don't be evil." Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But "Don't be evil" is much more than that...
Between 21 April and 4 May 2018, Google removed the motto from the preface, leaving a mention in the final line: "And remember… don't be evil, and if you see something that you think isn't right – speak up!"[6][13]