Google is scary on many fronts; from the information they collect about their users to how they use their size/power to bully their way into markets. While Platen has written about the evils of advertising based services and the power that Google (and Facebook) hold over their users, the mainstream media and “Wall Street” are in love with GOOG. Why? They are a money making machine with a cult-like following. Search has become synonymous with Google.
What has Google really done?
Google Search and AdWords puts Inktomi out of business…YES
Google Mail ends Yahoo Mail’s dominance…NO
Google Docs ends Microsoft’s Office dominance…NO
Google Talk ends Skype’s dominance…NO
Google Chat ends Yahoo/AOL IM’s dominance…NO
Google Chrome ends IE/Firefox’s browser dominance…NO
Google Android ends iPhone’s dominance…NO
Google YouTube ends Hulu’s dominance…NO
Google Books ends Amazon’s dominance….NO
Google Nexus One ends iPhone’s dominance…Any bets?…NO
Google Orkut ends (take your pick)’s dominance…NO
Google Chrome OS ends Linux/Microsoft’s dominance…Any bets?…NO
And the list continues…
Has Google made a strategic mistake?
While Microsoft continues to fight Google on many levels, they are too polarizing of a company to be a fanatical threat to Google. However, the same cannot be said about Apple. Apple users are incredibly loyal, fanatical, and growing. Additionally, Apple already has what Google wants and needs; OSX, iPhone, iPad, and i(whatever they want to build). Google sees the future; it’s in mobile devices and owning the mobile OS and/or advertising platforms. Apple has the devices, the store, and the platform to dominate.
After Steve jobs said, “…This don’t be evil mantra: It’s bullshit.” Google’s world is very different. With a single OS upgrade, Google search becomes a memory on the iPhone. Or, with a single purchase, iSearch is born. Or, …
As Carl Sagan said, “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Google isn’t a non-for-profit, they aren’t the Gates Foundation; instead they are like any other corporation that seeks to maximize profits and shareholder value. However, while IBM sells services, Cisco sells hardware, and Wal-Mart sells goods, Google needs YOUR personal information, YOUR habits, YOUR mood, YOUR clicks, and more to make money via advertising.
The bamboozle is over.
PlatenReport 
There is no bamboozle, there is only a misinterpretation based on an unmet expectation. The Google philosophy page shows how Google defines “do no evil” (http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tenthings.html), and there really isn’t a lot to fault them for. They don’t charge for much of their consumer products in exchange for gathering data to target advertising to you. They open-source almost all of their software. They are ranked in the top 5 best places to work several years running. They are keeping choices available for web browsers, web os’s, and mobile os’s. They have a charitable foundation that utilizes their strengths in data mining to help others. So why the virulent, fact-free attack?
Google is good at making money and creating a cloud of “good” around themselves. The fact is most users do not understand the ramifications of trading services for information.
Floyd you always have some very interesting points. This was a very timely post as I was listing to a radio show today about this very thing. They recommended a search engine called http://www.startpage.com which does not keep/track any information on searches that you do or your source IP. The other thing I found very interesting about your post was the Carl Sagan quote… “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” That applies so perfectly to the so-called “global warming” non-issue. We’ve seen a ton of evidence that it is made up science but yet people are and have been rejecting the bamboozle proof. Cheers