I hope you are using hyperbole here. Google employs hundreds of researchers who are free to publish their work as far as I can tell (plenty of seminal systems,

I hope you are using hyperbole here. Google employs hundreds of researchers who are free to publish their work as far as I can tell (plenty of seminal systems, AI, economics -- auction mechanisms and such, and other papers are testament to this fact). There appear to be some exceptions to this that are causing a furore.