Google Marketing Manager : SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The demonstrations in Egypt have left Google in a bind, trying to maintain a careful diplomatic distance from one of its own young employees who has become a hero to protesting crowds in Cairo — in an uprising that the company's own technology had a small role in advancing.
Google has taken political stances in the past, most notably last year, when it opposed China's censorship laws. Its power-to-the-people philosophy is influenced by co-founder Sergey Brin, who developed an enmity for oppression because of his Jewish family's suffering under Communism in the Soviet Union, including efforts to block his father's career. Google's famous "don't be evil" catchphrase has long been a guiding principle for the company, as it has advocated for openness on the Internet, even as the motto has become a punch line in recent years for privacy activists who object to the company's data-collection methods.
Google's relationship with Egypt has been relatively calm. Based on the com
pany's own breakdown of how frequently it is asked to remove content by authorities around the world, the government of President Hosni Mubarak has rarely objected to its search engine.Egypt's release this week of Wael Ghonim, the 30-year-old marketing manager for Google who has claimed credit for the Facebook page that helped start the uprising, highlights the predicament for high-profile companies whose workers' political activism can become a liability.
Ghonim is an Egyptian who oversees Google's marketing in the Middle East and Africa from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. He went missing Jan. 27, two days after protests calling for Mubarak's ouster began.
One of the main tools for organizing the rallies was a Facebook page in honor of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old businessman who died in June at the hands of undercover police, a hated institution for many Egyptians.
