Well, this concept dates from the nineties. Google, as opposed to AltaVista, Yahoo and others, was just a neat, minimalist search engine with excellent results

Well, this concept dates from the nineties. Google, as opposed to AltaVista, Yahoo and others, was just a neat, minimalist search engine with excellent results - and they remained in this way for a few years. In the minds of the users it was a company offering a great service while not asking for anything in exchange - and the "Do no evil" mantra seemed plausible back then.