GOOGLE HAS WOKEN UP to the fact that its much-maligned motto "Don't do evil" is an albatross around its neck. And no, you do not get any wafers with it.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington cites remarks by winsome Google high-flyer Marissa Mayer as proof that the search outfit has had enough of its catchphrase.

Mayer said that "It really wasn’t like an elected, ordained motto" in the first place. This might be news to Paul Buchheit who coined the phrase in 2001, and has long been the pillar of the self-imposed code of conduct.

(Article continues below)

As the outfit has got bigger, it has found the motto a little tricky. In 2006 when CEO Eric Schmidt (whilst Google was allowing the Chinese to censor the site) said that apparently there is a scale of evil and not to serve at all was "worse evil".

Mayer added that punters were using the motto as a stick to beat the search giant when it does something that they didn't like.