Google has just launched their Public Policy Blog, and by ‘launched’ I mean revealed – the blog has actually been active internally for a few months how. The decision to go public and the reasoning behind the blog I would guess has to do with the growing public sentiment against Google simply because they are getting so big. So big in fact that this has to be around their 50th active blog.

Google still has its ‘do no evil’ policy in place but as it continues to expand it’s no doubt getting harder to fulfill this promise to all users. Is giving into censorship laws in China ‘evil’ when their government demands it? Is Google Maps ‘Street View’ evil, when it only contains images that any passer-by could see? The Public Policy Blog will be the tool Google utilizes to try and explain itself in these type of situations.

I think it’s perhaps even taken for granted when Google takes the time to even respond to these controversies and state their views on policy. Plenty of non-Internet companies simply don’t even acknowledge sticky situations and just continue on hoping people will forget – and it usually works.

Perhaps the most significant thing about this new blog is that it actually has comments enabled – something most Google blogs don’t. Are they asking for trouble from spammers with this, or have they simply hired someone whose sole purpose is to moderate everything coming in? Either way, it’s nice of Google to join the conversation.