No matter I you look at it, the word manipulation comes with a negative connotation. The definition of the word manipulate comes with this at the end..."especially in an unfair manner." If you want to change how the public views your company, influence would be the way I would aim for. The word influence can come off as both good and bad but mostly, to me, seems neutral. Playing politics and misdirection is the first step over the line into the "bad." It is easy to influence others to think your company is good if it actually IS good. If there is anything shady about your company, then you must rely on manipulating others to view your company in a good manner.
It is a thin line between good and bad, but the core values are what will always determine which one you are. No matter how many "weapons" you have, if you are influencing people to believe you are good when you actually are, then there is nothing wrong with that. Manipulating people only comes when you have something to hide. Google is an interesting company. I missed the speaker because it was my birthday, but I can definitely assume some things that were talked about. People use Google for everything on a daily (if not hourly) basis. They make a ton of money on advertising, and even though we may not click on the sponsored links that comes up, we are clearly influenced/manipulated to see it whether we want to or not. It is hard to tell if this is taking advantage of users or not. Google is a business, and businesses need to make money. If that many people use it, then advertising is clearly the best way to make it. You can't blame Google for trying to make a buck on people's searches. In my opinion, Google will cross the line into the "bad" section the second advertisements become a hassle more than a minor inconvenience.
That was an interesting point regarding the adds when searching online. I usually don’t pay attention to them but now that you mention it I think that is completely taking advantage of users. Google is pretty much a standard for most people and that’s millions of customers at the fingertips of advertisers. I am going to pay more attention to exactly what I see because someone decided to run those sepcific adds for some reason or another. I pretty much think that all companies engage in manipulation all the time because the main goal is to make money and convince us to buy things we don’t necessarily need or that are not good for us.
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