This is interesting. Take a look at this excellent news story by Eric Auchard in which Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says the company's mantra of "Don't be evil" is often misunderstood.

Reuters: Google CEO talks of good, evil and monopoly fears

In an on-stage interview with writer Ken Auletta of the New Yorker magazine, Schmidt said "Don't be evil" is meant to provoke internal debate over what constitutes ethical corporate behavior, rather than representing an absolute moral position.

"We don't have an 'Evilmeter' we can sort of apply -- you know -- what is good and what is evil," Schmidt said. . .

Mr Schmidt is saying that 'being evil" is open to debate within the company. Usually, "evil" is not an ambiguous term.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall and listen to management's internal debates around evil business practices. Does someone take the devil's advocate role?

Over on ZDNet I wondered if we might get a change to the Google mantra such as:

- Don't be quite so evil

- Don't be really really evil

- Don't be evil-ish...

Or maybe a complete change:

- Evil schmevil

- Evil is just Live backwards.

Please send suggestions or moral pointers to E. Schmidt, Googleplex, Mountain View, CA 94043. Or you can leave them here and I'll pass them on...