First of all, I still think Google is a cool company and contributing a lot to the open source ecosystem. But Google advocating openness and doing so by talkin

First of all, I still think Google is a cool company and contributing a lot to the open source ecosystem. But Google advocating openness and doing so by talking about data, protocols and software is disingenuous. Google's core business is pushing advertising using search and data mining. Things that they are anything but open about. Also, Google regularly open-sources software (which is great), but doesn't make any real effort to further develop that software using open-source communities. Have you tried to push a patch back into a Google open source project? (If so, write a blog post and link it here, please). Development on open-source projects in Google happens inside Google, with changes periodically being pushed to the outside world. For the most part this is a one-way street. Still not complaining here, btw - community development is tricky and I don't see other companies really make an effort to release control to 'communities' (hello Sun/Java!). Google's open-source efforts only indirectly affect their bottom line. What they really do is make it harder for their competitors and garner public goodwill. Google also makes a big deal out of control. That users control their own data and can take it out of the Googlesphere at any time. Great! Can I have Google remove all the personal data they've collected on me that I didn't explicitly give them? Uh, sorry - no go there. All that really personal stuff doesn't fall under your control. I'd expect any company to behave in such a manner (or worse, actually), but Google presents itself as a beacon of goodness, openness and generally never Evil. As such we hold them to a higher standard which they can't live up to. So a sanctimonious sermon on being good and open just hits some people the wrong way. Not me, of course. I'm a bit of a cynic and get a few giggles out of a shot of blatant hypocrisy.