> Google is perceived as a benevolent or neutral service bordering on a public utility. That is not an accident. They worked overtime to construct that image.

> Google is perceived as a benevolent or neutral service bordering on a public utility. That is not an accident. They worked overtime to construct that image. Yet it might come as a little surprise that they are more in bed with the government than Northrop Grumman, Verizon, Goldman and Comcast: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782... they spent about $18M in lobbying last year outspending all those other "evil" companies so to speak. Schmidt was directly involved in Hillary's campaign and there is a picture circulating of him at one of campaign events wearing a "staff" badge: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000158-6a12-d435-a9ff-7f5ae4080001 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000158-6a12-d435-a9ff-7f5ae... that coupled with the "killing people the right way" is all you need to know what Alphabet stands for and where it is headed. > There is a huge ethical gap between private arms manufacturing and a non-militarized company with this much reach participating in a non-wartime I claim that there isn't in the sense that once a company becomes large enough it will start participating in killing people "the right way" as Schmidt put it. That happens regardless if we still want to have that cutesy, colorful, not-evil search company image. Amazon (AWS) is selling billion dollars worth of services to the CIA, I am sure that's not for cat pictures and buying books. Microsoft's hands I am pretty sure are not exactly clean either, etc.