Google's mantra is to "do no evil" but a look beneath the surface shows that things are not all that clean.

The Daily Mail reports that Google avoided paying £450 million ($US727 million) in corporation tax on its £1.6 billion ($US2.6 billion) earnings in Britain. How did it do it? Google's European headquarters are in Dublin, which means that advertising earnings from customers in Britain are sent through to the Irish subsidiary. That means the company only pays a 15% levy instead of 30% in corporate tax.

Then Wired reports that Google isn't coming clean on how much much user data it turns over to the US government. This is no small matter. Google is supposed to be a champion of the freedom of expression. And as Wired journalist David Kravets says, it goes to the heart of free expression "especially with a company that wants you to use its operating system, its browser, its DNS servers, its search service and its e-mail and phonecalling programs."

When Kravets put the question to Google, the company spokesman Brian Richardson responded with double speak. "We don't talk about types or numbers of requests to help protect all our users. Obviously, we follow the law like any other company. When we receive a subpoena or court order, we check to see if it meets both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying. And if it doesn't we can object or ask that the request is narrowed. We have a track record of advocating on behalf of our users."

Try and make sense of that. Google holds on to the information and refuses to share data on issues that affect everyone's online privacy.

That's a big concern in itself. Even more so when you have a company that claims it's all about transparency and freedom of expression.