Google has made its transition final. The company's shares are now Alphabet shares, but the ticker symbols for Alphabet's stock will still be GOOG and GOOGL.  Soup in the Google café will officially be alphabet soup.

Over the years, Google has entered into so many different industries that it decided grouping all of its divisions under a new company would make sense.

But as part of the change Google issued a few new guidelines.  While the Google search engine side of the business will keep its “do no evil” motto – Alphabet has ditched it.

Alphabet staff will have to follow the following motto now – “do the right thing – follow the law, act honourably, and treat each other with respect.”

This change is telling. It basically means that Google can do what it likes as the “right thing” is pretty subjective.  It would be the “right thing” for Google and its shareholders to avoid paying tax using any legal loophole it liked.  It would not be the “right thing” for any country which needed the tax money to pay for health, welfare and education.  It would be the “right thing” and legal for Google to hand over all data to the government and provide backdoors in its software.  

Fortunately, the search engine itself will still have the “do no evil motto” unlike its umbrella company which can do a little evil to line its pockets.