Recent suckage by Google regarding their AdSense program (see Joi's post for latest set of links to related posts) brings to light an interesting choice in life.  If you had to choose, which would you rather be: Stupid or Evil?

Since Google's #1 rule is "Don't be Evil", I guess they would rather be Stupid than Evil.  Just in case, here is How Google can be Smart and Secretly Evil:

1. Shut up about the secret monitoring technology that can detect mousy leech with 100% accuracy.  What is the point of bragging about something you can't show?  Besides, if secrecy is one of its secret sauce, it follows that cheats can be found when the details are revealed.  Also, you can't even reveal it to your advertisers to convince them that it works, can you?  Be smart and just shut up about it.
    
2. Stop sending accusatory letters to well-connected troublemakers.  Yes, that means bloggers.  In your zeal to tap a potentially explosive market, you paid too much attention to the word market and not enough attention to the word explosive.  Keep poking the bear and you are gonna get Evil-branded like Microsoft.
    
3. Stop listening to lawyers.  They are worse than righteous geeks and angry mothers when it comes to making trouble.  Yes, that means knocking off that stupid addition to the AdSense contract.
    
4. Do apologize like a sniveling idiot.  Apologies don't show up on the balance sheet so spend it like a maniac.
    
5. Do introduce account productivity level (percentage of good click-throughs over total click-throughs) which is multiplied to total amount owed.  So if my level is 50% and my AdSense accumulated $200, I get $100.
    
6. Do introduce probation periods for new accounts.  Accounts on probation period are monitored more closely and may get canceled without pay.
      
7. Do review AdSense accounts regularly and warn unproductive accounts.  If improvements are not made after initial warnings, account is placed on probation.
    
8. Do hire someone who can sell ice-cream to Eskimos to write the cancellation letter instead of having some fool write something that falls just short of calling people thieves and liers.

Update #1:

I retracted Do pay in full item and reordered the list in response to fan mail (;-p).