Perhaps, but I think that even in the long run, people will have lost confidence in Google as a brand, even if they don't remember the particular reason why. Ir

Perhaps, but I think that even in the long run, people will have lost confidence in Google as a brand, even if they don't remember the particular reason why. Ironically, this damage can propagate along the same social graphs that Google tried to exploit. Users who have lost confidence will be less likely to recommend Google in the future, meaning less people at the second order recommend Google, etc. Even after the story has forgotten, one can well imagine the social graph itself remembering.