This is upside down. There is no reason for Google to pay researchers and to not have some ownership over the process or outcome in some manner, in fact, it's

This is upside down. There is no reason for Google to pay researchers and to not have some ownership over the process or outcome in some manner, in fact, it's unreasonable to contemplate otherwise. Google was exceedingly gracious by sponsoring the work and having it make public in the first place. The demands made of the researchers in question were quite minor, and completely appropriate, and frankly immaterial to the thrust of concerns anyhow. To boot, accusations of 'racism' are vicious and repulsive. If researchers want to be completely independent in the terms they might expect in academia - that's entirely understandable - perfectly fine - but they'll have to find jobs elsewhere. Google has a Search Engine and bunch of other products, and to suggest that their major investment in research should entitle them to some kind of fair parameterize of the process is very reasonable. To remedy the situation, and an obvious failure on Google's part, they should spend some time thinking about where that line is drawn, and what kind of expectations should be in place. In retrospect, it seems like a management failure for there to have been any misunderstanding on that front. But the point is -> there is a line. Researchers that don't want to with those parameters can make the choice not to. That's why we have both private and publicly funded research.