Every once in a while a person comes along who does good simply for the sake of helping others. Sometimes, that person is not a person at all, but rather a group of people at a company. In this case, that company is Google. Google, who is known for their informal motto of “don’t be evil,” has once again gone out of their way to better peoples’ lives, and it’s all 100 percent free.

On Nov. 3, Typhoon Haiyan formed. Over the next week, this typhoon progressed to tear apart countries such as Micronesia, Taiwan and Vietnam, eventually becoming a category five super typhoon. However, of the countries affected by this typhoon, the Philippines were hit the hardest. With some 23,000 casualties, according to the Official Gazette, and massive damage to national infrastructure, Filipino President Benigno Aquino III has declared a state of national calamity.

In response to this disaster, Google has stepped in and updated their Crisis Map, a free, digital map based off of the Google maps platform, which shows people the locations of emergency facilities such as hospitals, police stations and ports.

“I believe the maps are a unique and effective way of contributing to the disaster efforts,” said senior Joe Young. “If we can continue crowdsourcing our efforts, we can get help to those who need it much faster and more effectively.”

The response over Google’s efforts has been overwhelmingly positive. This raises a question: should companies with the resources available to help be obliged to donate their time and resources? If not obliged, should there be government incentives set aside for companies who volunteer to help in crises such as this?

“I don’t think companies are obliged to help, but if they do decide to help, they definitely have more available resources to provide in the effort,” said Young. “A monetary incentive would be pointless. An obvious incentive for companies in situations like these is public opinion.

And the public opinion of Google has definitely been benefiting from their Crisis Maps. Although Google is already top when it comes to consumer satisfaction, the Internet is abuzz with talk about crisis maps. However, not everyone is swayed by Google’s show of philanthropy.

“I am often intrigued about Google and the services they provide and innovate, however this new service doesn’t make me anymore likely to purchase their products,” said senior Conor Murphy. “Google is a technology giant that is guilty of invading the privacy of billions, manipulating its users to gain a profit off advertising, as well as forfeiting mass amounts of data to the [National Security Agency].”

Opinions aside, Google is helping lead a revolution of crowd-sourced mapping, which will help victims to reach aid during crises quicker and more efficiently, something which will hopefully be used to save lives in the future.