I disagree. Of all companies, Google actively engages academia and works hard to maintain ties (e.g., faculty summits, research grants, etc.) They have a lot of

I disagree. Of all companies, Google actively engages academia and works hard to maintain ties (e.g., faculty summits, research grants, etc.) They have a lot of collaborations and want to foster good relations so that good students will be sent their way. It's been a largely successful effort. Scholar is a vital tool for a lot of members of academia, not to mention Google's own research and research-heavy engineering groups. A lot of faculty---particularly young faculty and PhD students---actively maintain profiles on scholar and use it to track their own publications and citations. The minor cost of keeping it running is a small price to pay, relative to the bad blood it would generate within the research community if it is shut down.