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"Don't be evil" is a hard motto to live up to.

Just ask Google Inc., which now finds itself with an ethical problem, stuck between its idealistic corporate philosophy of doing no harm and its business goals of expanding in China.

The company's recent decision to censor search results in China that the Beijing government deems subversive is causing major headaches for the wildly successful online search company, including requests to appear on Capitol Hill. A briefing with the congressional Human Rights Caucus about online censorship in China was set for Friday, but Google representatives declined to attend.

"It's a shame that Google's promising vision of corporate governance and ethics gets exposed as hypocritical so quickly," said David Vogel, professor of business ethics at the University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Google's image has taken a beating since last week, when it introduced a search engine for China, www.google.cn, that excludes certain results about Taiwanese independence, the Tiananmen Square massacre and democracy. Critics have accused the company of complicity with China's government.

Last month, in an unusual scene, about a dozen supporters of a free Tibet picketed Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. Bloggers have also weighed in with sharp attacks on the company and tips on how Chinese users can get around the censorship.

It should also be noted that Google isn't alone among companies censoring the Web in China. Rivals Yahoo and Microsoft also block sensitive material.

Responding to the complaints, Google acknowledged it made some compromises to its philosophy. But it said providing limited information in China is better than nothing.

China's citizens "deserve to have a choice of using Google," Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said. "We must comply with the laws in the countries that we operate in, and we want to operate in every country."

Bart Schachter, managing director of Blueprint Ventures, a venture capital firm, said the potential riches to be had from operating in the world's most populous nation are too tempting for companies to pass up.

"I think that people would sell their mothers to get into China," he said.

What's different about Google is that it has held itself to a higher ethical standard with its exuberant "Don't be evil" philosophy. In filings with federal regulators for its initial public offering in 2004, the company described its credo as doing "good things for the world even if we forgo some short-term gains."

"This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company," the letter said.

In particular, Google has steadfastly opposed censorship. Until late January, a page on the company's online help center has said, "Google does not censor results for any search term."