As profit-minded companies go, it would be hard to find one that professes more righteousness than Google Inc. How many other firms have “Don’t be evil” as their top corporate value, as Google spelled out in its prospectus when it filed to go public last July?

The filing goes on to declare that Google’s search software will always be unbiased, with a level of objectivity “similar to a well-run newspaper.”

Evil, of course, is in the eye of the shareholder. What may seem like a benign business practice to Google may, to others, seem unfair. Many mom-and-pop businesses, for example, fear Google might wittingly or unwittingly put them out of business merely by tweaking the way their “unbiased” search results are ranked.

Now comes Google’s ambitious plan to digitize millions of books at the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford universities and the New York Public Library.

When the libraries’ deal was announced in mid-December, library advocates and researchers responded with unbridled enthusiasm. No library, after all, can similarly spend tens of millions of dollars over the next decade to have high-speed cameras capture words on printed pages and convert them into digital characters that can be searched (er, Googled) on the Web. Moreover, by bringing those holdings to the Googlesphere, library enthusiasts hope the Internet’s ultimate potential — to unlock vast stores of academic research — can be realized.

Can profit-minded Google and public-minded university libraries peacefully coexist? So far, the answer seems to be yes — or at least maybe. While the deal is raising some privacy concerns, it also could help library lobbyists’ efforts to preserve the concept of “fair use” of copyrighted electronic material, as Congress continues to combat online piracy.

The scanning project will initially focus on books no longer protected by copyright (generally titles published before the 1920s) as well as government material. But Google also plans to scan copyrighted books — and will display only excerpts, along with links to online booksellers.

What excites the libraries most is that they get to retain the digital copies of every book that is scanned — even the copyrighted ones. That, technically, should run afoul of copyright laws. In the print world, the “fair use” exception to copyright law allows libraries to lend single copies to patrons. They generally cannot duplicate a book in its entirety unless they meet strict criteria (such as a book that is badly damaged).

But library policy analysts are encouraged that former Rep. Patricia Schroeder, who now heads the Association of American Publishers, said recently that her group has no immediate problem with the Google deal. Booksellers, it seems, see the revenue potential of the deal as well. Librarians are hoping this will set a precedent for libraries owning digital copies of copyrighted material for educational use.

The privacy question is whether Google, by making available the holdings of public and university libraries on its search engine, might also be creating a loophole around the privacy protections that libraries have long extended to their borrowers. Could, for example, law enforcement officials use Google to find out what people are reading and bypass the higher hurdles of obtaining court orders from libraries?

Despite Google’s best intentions, its privacy standards could never be as high as those of the libraries with whom they’re now in business. Laws in 48 states, and attorney general rulings in two others, protect library borrowers’ records from being seized without a court order.

Libraries are already in a heated battle to protect their privacy policies. The 2001 anti-terrorism law dubbed the Patriot Act makes it much easier for law enforcement to get a court order and seize borrower records. The American Library Association is lobbying to ensure that Section 215 of that law expires, as it’s scheduled to under law, in December.

Now library law specialists are wondering whether the Google deal opens an even bigger back door to privacy invasions.

“Will law enforcement now go to Google and start looking into people’s personal records?” said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of ALA’s Washington office. “Commercial entities don’t have that same level of protection and the same psychology of trying to protect your information.”

Indeed, Google’s business model depends on knowing what its users are searching for. It plants a persistent “cookie” in your computer (expiration date, 2038) and uses your search history to target ads back at you. If you sign up for Google’s new Gmail service, Google will scan the content of your e-mail to market stuff to you.

One source at Google told me that libraries shouldn’t worry because Google users aren’t patrons in the traditional sense — they won’t be “checking out” books, they’ll be visiting library Web pages. Moreover, he said, law enforcement officials are more likely to track suspects through Internet service providers than through Google; ISPs keep even more detailed data on users’ names, search-histories and overall Web usage.

The Google privacy topic got a fair bit of attention at the ALA’s mid-winter conference in Boston last week, attendees said. “They’re really trying to do a good thing,” Sheketoff averred. “But I do think we need to recognize there could be unintended negative consequences.”

There usually are, after all, when public institutions partner with publicly traded companies — even those whose credo is “Don’t be evil.”

Mike Mills is CQ’s executive editor for electronic publishing. Next week’s CQ Roundtable: Courts and the Law, by Kenneth Jost.