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{{otheruses4|the corporation|the search engine|Google search|the number 10<sup>100</sup>|Googol|other uses}}
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{{Infobox_Company
| company_name = Bulldog industries/ Monkey Man
| company_name = Google Inc.
| company_logo = [[Image:Google.png|250px]]
| company_type = [[public company|Public]]<br />{{nasdaq|GOOG}}<br />{{lse|GGEA}}
| foundation = <!--Creation: [[Stanford University]], [[California]] (January 1996<br />Incorporation:-->[[Menlo Park, California]] (September 4, 1998)<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2119530 |title=Incorporation document |date=April 29, 2004 |accessdate=2008-09-27}}</ref>
| founder = [[Sergey Brin|Sergey M. Brin]]<br />[[Larry Page|Lawrence E. Page]]
| location_city = [[Googleplex]], [[Mountain View, California|Mountain View]], [[California]], [[United States]]
| location_country =
| area_served = Worldwide
| key_people = [[Eric E. Schmidt|Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Ph.D.]]<br /><small>([[Chairman]]) & ([[CEO]])</small><br />[[Sergey Brin|Sergey M. Brin]]<br /><small>(Technology President)</small><br />[[Larry Page|Lawrence E. Page]]<br /><small>(Products President)</small>
| industry = [[Internet]], [[Computer software]]
| products = See [[list of Google products]]
| revenue = {{profit}}31.3% [[United States dollar|$]] 21.796 billion <small>(2008)</small><ref name="financialtables">{{cite web |url=http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html |title=Financial Tables |publisher=Google Investor Relations |accessdate=2009-01-23}}</ref>
| operating_income = {{profit}}30.4% [[United States dollar|$]] 6.632 billion <small>(2008)</small><ref name="financialtables" />
| net_income = {{profit}}.6% [[United States dollar|$]] 4.227 billion <small>(2008)</small><ref name="financialtables" />
| assets= {{increase}} [[United States dollar|$]] 31.768 billion <small>(2008)</small><ref name="financialtables" />
| equity= {{increase}} [[United States dollar|$]] 28.239 billion <small>(2008)</small><ref name="financialtables" />
| num_employees = 20,164 - <small>March 2009</small><ref name="q42008results">{{cite web
|url=http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHtmlSection1?SessionID=_GDvWFiYveNip-7&SectionID=6544990-6795-53043
|title=Edgar Online - Google Inc. (GOOG) - 4/16/2009
|date=April 16, 2009
|accessdate=2009-04-19}}</ref>
| company_slogan = [[Don't be evil]]
| homepage = [http://www.google.com/ Google.com]
}}
'''Google Inc.''' is an [[United States|American]] [[public company|public corporation]], earning revenue from [[AdWords|advertising]] related to its [[Google search|Internet search]], [[Gmail|e-mail]], [[Google Maps|online mapping]], [[Google Apps|office productivity]], [[Orkut|social networking]], and [[YouTube|video sharing]] services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the [[Google Search Appliance|same technologies]]. The Google headquarters, [[Googleplex|the Googleplex]], is located in [[Mountain View, California]]. {{As of|2009|03|31|df=US}}, the company has 20,164 full-time employees.

Google was co-founded by [[Larry Page]] and [[Sergey Brin]] while they were students at [[Stanford University]] and the company was first incorporated as a [[privately held company]] on September 4, 1998. The [[initial public offering]] took place on August 19, 2004, raising [[United States dollar|US$]]1.67 billion, implying a value for the entire corporation of US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, [[List of Google acquisitions|acquisitions]], and [[Google#Partnerships|partnerships]]. [[Google#Environmentalism|Environmentalism]], [[Google.org|philanthropy]] and [[Google#Corporate affairs and culture|positive employee relations]] have been important tenets during the growth of Google. The company has been identified multiple times as [[Fortune Magazine]]'s #1 Best Place to Work,<ref name="best_company">"[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2007/full_list/ 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007]". ''[[Fortune Magazine]] (link published by [[CNN]])''. 22 January 2007. Retrieved on January 8, 2007.</ref> and as the most powerful brand in the world<ref>[http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/optimor/Media/Pdfs/en/BrandZ/BrandZ-2008-Report.pdf BrandZ Top 100 2008 Report] (PDF)</ref> (according to the [[Kantar Group#Millward Brown Group|Millward Brown Group]]).

The Company describes its mission as follows:
{{cquote|Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.|Corporate Information||Google|''Corporate Information''<ref> [http://www.google.com/corporate/ Google Corporate Information]</ref>}}

The unofficial company slogan, coined by former employee and [[Gmail]]'s first engineer<ref>[[History_of_Gmail#Internal_development|History of Gmail]] at Wikipedia</ref> [[Paul Buchheit]], is "[[Don't be evil]]".<ref>[http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html Paul Buchheit on Gmail, AdSense and More] Google Blogoscoped</ref><ref>[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/03/dont-be-evil-trigger-for-ethical.html Don't Be Evil, a Trigger for Ethical Questions] Google Operating System Blog</ref><ref>[http://www.crazyengineers.com/small-talk/1-cover-story/78-small-talk-with-mr-paul-buchheit-creator-of-gmail-adsense-a-friendfeed Small Talk with Mr. Paul Buchheit - Creator of Gmail, Adsense & FriendFeed!] CrazyEngineers</ref> [[Criticism of Google]] includes concerns regarding the [[privacy]] of personal information, [[copyright]], [[censorship by Google|censorship]] and discontinuation of services.<ref>[[List_of_Google_products#Previous_products|List of previous Google products]] at Wikipedia</ref>

==History==
{{main|History of Google}}
[[Image:Google1998.png|thumb|left|Google in 1998]]
[[File:Google’s First Production Server.jpg|thumb|The first iteration of Google production servers was built with inexpensive hardware and was designed to be very fault-tolerant]]
Google began in January 1996, as a research project by [[Larry Page]], who was soon joined by [[Sergey Brin]], when they were both [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] students at [[Stanford University]] in [[California]].<ref name="milestones">"[http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/history.html Corporate Information: Google Milestones]". ''Google''. Retrieved on 23 February 2007.</ref> They hypothesized that a [[search engine]] that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.<ref>Page, Lawrence; Brin, Sergey; Motwani, Rajeev; Winograd, Terry. "[http://dbpubs.stanford.edu:8090/pub/1999-66 The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web]". 11 November 1999.</ref> Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked [[backlinks]] to estimate the importance of a site.<ref>Battelle, John. "[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/battelle.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 The Birth of Google]". ''[[Wired Magazine]].'' August, 2005.</ref><ref>[http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22707.html "BackRub" becomes "Google"]</ref> A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.<ref>Li, Yanhong. "[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/wrapper.jsp?arnumber=707687 Toward a qualitative search engine]." ''Internet Computing, IEEE.'' '''2 (4),''' July-August, 1998, 24-29.</ref>

Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally, the search engine used the [[Stanford University]] website with the domain ''google.stanford.edu''. The domain ''google.com'' was registered on 15 September 1997,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://whois.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=google.com | title=WHOIS - google.com | accessdate=2008-08-18}}</ref> and the company was incorporated as ''Google Inc.'' on 4 September 1998 at a friend's garage in [[Menlo Park, California]]. The total initial investment raised for the new company <!-- when is 'eventually'? 1998? 2008? --> amounted to almost US$1.1 million, including a US$100,000 check by [[Andy Bechtolsheim]], one of the founders of [[Sun Microsystems]].<ref>Google. "[http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/history.html Google Milestones]." Retrieved on 12 July 2006.</ref>

In March 1999, the company moved into offices in [[Palo Alto, California|Palo Alto]], home to several other noted [[Silicon Valley]] technology startups.<ref name="165univave">Fried, Ian. "[http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960790.html A building blessed with tech success]." ''[[CNET]].'' 4 October 2002. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in [[Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California|Mountain View]] at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from [[Silicon Graphics]] (SGI) in 2003.<ref name="sgibldg">Olsen, Stefanie. "[http://news.com.com/Googles+movin+on+up/2110-1032_3-1025111.html Google's movin' on up]." ''[[CNET]].'' 11 July 2003. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since come to be known as the [[Googleplex]] (a play on the word [[googolplex]]). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for US$319 million.<ref name="googleplexpurchase">Staff Writer. "[http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/06/19/newscolumn3.html Google to buy headquarters building from Silicon Graphics]." ''Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal.'' 16 June 2006. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref>

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and useful results.<ref name="simpledesign">Thompson, Bill. "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3334531.stm Is Google good for you?]" ''[[BBC News]].'' 19 December 2003. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> In 2000, Google began selling [[advertising|advertisements]] associated with search [[keyword (internet search)|keywords]].<ref name="milestones" /> The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.<ref name="milestones" /> Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at US$.05 per click.<ref name="milestones" /> This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by [[Yahoo! Search Marketing|Goto.com]] (later renamed [[Overture Services]], before being acquired by [[Yahoo!]] and rebranded as [[Yahoo! Search Marketing]]).<ref name="goto strong">Sullivan, Danny. "[http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2166331 GoTo Going Strong]." ''The Search Engine Report.'' 1 July 1998.</ref><ref name="cnet p4p">Pelline, Jeff. "[http://news.com.com/Pay-for-placement+gets+another+shot/2100-1023_3-208309.html Pay-for-placement gets another shot]." ''[[CNET]].'' 19 February 1998.</ref><ref name="glaser">Glaser, Ken. "Who Will GoTo.com?" [http://www.onlinepress.com/ OnlinePress.com].'' 20 February 1998.</ref> Goto.com was an [[Idealab]] spin off created by [[Bill Gross]], and was the first company to successfully provide a pay-for-placement search service. Overture Services later sued Google over alleged infringements of Overture's pay-per-click and bidding patents by Google's [[AdWords]] service. The case was settled out of court, with Google agreeing to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.<ref>[http://netscape.com.com/Google,+Yahoo!+bury+the+legal+hatchet/2100-1024_3-5302421.html Google, Yahoo bury the legal hatchet], Stefanie Olsen, CNET News.com, August 9, 2004</ref> Thus, while many of its [[dot-com company|dot-com]] rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.<ref name="milestones" />

The name "Google" originated from a common misspelling of the word "[[googol]]",<ref>Koller, David. "[http://graphics.stanford.edu/~dk/google_name_origin.html Origin of the name, "Google."] ''[[Stanford University]].'' January, 2004.</ref><ref>Hanley, Rachael. "[http://daily.stanford.org/article/2003/2/12/fromGoogolToGoogle From Googol to Google: Co-founder returns]." ''[[The Stanford Daily]].'' 12 February 2003. Retrieved on 14 July 2006.</ref> which refers to 10<sup>100</sup>, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "[[google (verb)|google]]", was added to the ''[[Merriam-Webster|Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary]]'' and the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."<ref>Harris, Scott D. "{{cite web |url=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/14985574.htm |title= Dictionary adds verb: to google |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20060715065927/http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/14985574.htm |archivedate=2006-07-15}}." ''[[San Jose Mercury News]].'' 7 July 2006. Retrieved on 7 July 2006.</ref><ref>Bylund, Anders. "[http://web.archive.org/web/20060707062623/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13720643/ To Google or Not to Google (archived)]." ''[[The Motley Fool]] via [[MSNBC]].'' 5 July 2006. Retrieved on 7 July 2006.</ref>

A [[patent]] describing part of the Google ranking mechanism ([[PageRank]]) was granted on 4 September 2001.<ref name="patent">Page, Lawrence. "[http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US6285999 Method for node ranking in a linked database]." ''[[European Patent Organisation]].'' 4 September 2001. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

===Financing and initial public offering===
The first funding for Google as a company was secured in August 1998, in the form of a US$100,000 contribution from [[Andy Bechtolsheim]], co-founder of [[Sun Microsystems]], given to a corporation which did not yet exist.<ref name="Bechtolsheim">Kopytoff, Verne; Fost, Dan. "[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/29/MNGLD6CFND34.DTL For early Googlers, key word is $$$]." ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]].'' 29 April 2004. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref>

On June 7, 1999 a round of funding of $25 million was announced,<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20000309205910/http://google.com/pressrel/pressrelease1.html |title=Google Receives $25 Million in Equity Funding |date=June 7, 1999 |location=Palo Alto, Calif. |publisher=Google |accessdate=2009-02-16}}</ref> with the major investors being rival venture capital firms [[Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers]] and [[Sequoia Capital]].<ref name="Bechtolsheim"/>

The Google [[IPO]] took place on 19 August 2004. 19,605,052 [[stock|shares]] were offered at a price of US$85 per share.<ref name="IPO">Elgin, Ben. "[http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2004/tc20040819_6843_tc120.htm Google: Whiz Kids or Naughty Boys?]" ''[[Business Week]].'' 19 August 2004. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref><ref>[http://investor.google.com/pdf/2004_AnnualReport.pdf untitled<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as [[square root of two|√2]] ≈ 1.4142135) were floated by Google, and the remaining 5,462,917 were offered by existing stockholders. The sale of US$1.67 billion gave Google a [[market capitalization]] of more than US$23 billion.<ref name="washpost">Webb, Cynthia L. "[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14939-2004Aug19.html Google's IPO: Grate Expectations]." ''[[Washington Post]].'' 19 August 2004. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google. Many Google employees became instant [[paper millionaires]]. [[Yahoo!]], a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of 9 August 2004, ten days before the IPO.<ref name="yahooshares">Kuchinskas, Susan. "[http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3392781 Yahoo and Google Settle]." ''[http://www.internetnews.com/ internetnews.com].'' 9 August 2004. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref>

The stock performance of Google after its first IPO launch has gone well, with shares hitting US$700 for the first time on 31 October 2007,<ref>[[Daily Telegraph]] Issue 47,409 Business Section Page B5 date, 7 November 2007</ref> due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features such as the [[Google Desktop|desktop search function]] and its iGoogle personalized home page.<ref name="bowlingforgoogle">La Monica, Paul R. "[http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/25/technology/techinvestor/lamonica/index.htm Bowling for Google]." ''[[CNN]].'' 25 May 2005. Retrieved on 28 February 2007.</ref> The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and [[mutual fund]]s.<ref name="bowlingforgoogle" />

The company is listed on the [[NASDAQ]] stock exchange under the [[ticker symbol]] '''GOOG''' and under the [[London Stock Exchange]] under the ticker symbol '''GGEA'''.

===Growth===
While the primary business interest is in the web content arena, Google has begun experimenting with other markets, such as [[radio]] and print publications. On 17 January 2006, Google announced that its purchase of a radio advertising company "dMarc", which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.<ref>Levingston, Steven. "[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011701333.html Google Buys Company To Expand Into Radio]." ''[[Washington Post]].'' 18 January 2006.</ref> This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media&mdash;the Internet and radio&mdash;with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the [[Chicago Sun-Times]].<ref>Gonsalves, Antone. "[http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175803378 Google Confirms Testing Ads in Sun-Times Newspaper]." ''[[Information Week]]''. " 10 January 2006.</ref> They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements.

===Acquisitions===
{{seealso|List of Google acquisitions}}
Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies.

In 2004, Google acquired a company called [[Keyhole, Inc.]],<ref>"[http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/keyhole.html Google press announcement: Google acquires Keyhole, Inc.]</ref> which developed a product called ''Earth Viewer'' which was renamed in 2005 to [[Google Earth]]{{Fact|date=September 2008}}.

In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a [[weblog]] statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on 6 April 2006 and outlined many of the known issues of the service.<ref>"[http://groups.google.com/group/measuremap-forums-important/browse_thread/thread/dffb45fd6d9748c1 Measure Map Forum - Known issues]." ''[[Google Groups]].'' 6 April 2006. Retrieved on 10 September 2007.</ref>

In late 2006, Google bought the online video site [[YouTube]] for US$1.65 billion in stock.<ref>La Monica, Paul R. "[http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/09/technology/googleyoutube_deal/index.htm?cnn=yes Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion]." ''[[CNN]].'' 9 October 2006. Retrieved on 9 October 2006.</ref> Shortly after, on 31 October 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired [[JotSpot]], a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites.<ref>[http://www.crackgoogle.com/content/view/23/ Google Buys Wiki Startup JotSpot]. 31 October 2006.</ref>

On 13 April 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire [[DoubleClick]]. Google agreed to buy the company for US$3.1 billion.<ref name="DoubleClicknyt"> Louise Stort and Miguel Helft. "[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/technology/14DoubleClick.html?ref=technology Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion]." ''[[The New York Times]]''. 13 April 2007. Retrieved on 13 April 2007.</ref>

On 2 July 2007, Google purchased [[GrandCentral]]. Google agreed to buy the company for US$50 million.<ref name="GoogleBlog"> Wesley Chan. "[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/all-aboard.html]." ''[[Official Google Blog]]''. Retrieved on 6 January 2009.</ref>

On 9 July 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company [[Postini]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/postini_20070709.html|title=Google to acquire Postini|publisher=Google (Press release)|accessdate=2007-07-18|date=9 July 2007}}</ref>

===Partnerships===
In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with [[NASA Ames Research Center]] to build up {{convert|1000000|sqft|m2|-3}} of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, [[nanotechnology]], [[distributed computing]], and the entrepreneurial space industry.<ref name="nasaames">Mills, Elinor. "[http://news.com.com/Can+Google+beat+the+new-office+curse/2100-1030_3-5884957.html Can Google beat the new-office curse?]" ''[[CNET]].'' 28 September 2005. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> Google also entered into a partnership with [[Sun Microsystems]] in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies.<ref name="googlesun">Kessler, Michelle; Acohido, Byron. "[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-10-03-google-sun-team_x.htm Google, Sun make 'big deal' together]." ''[[USA Today]].'' 3 October 2005. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> The company entered into a partnership with [[AOL]] of [[Time Warner]],<ref name="googleaol">Mills, Elinor. "[http://news.com.com/What+the+Google-AOL+deal+means+for+users/2100-1024_3-6010327.html What the Google-AOL deal means for users]." ''[[CNET]].'' 28 December 2005. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> to enhance each other's video search services.

The same year, the company became a major financial investor of the new [[.mobi]] [[top-level domain]] for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including [[Microsoft]], [[Nokia]], and [[Ericsson]] among others.<ref name="investors">"[http://mtld.mobi/company/about/investors dotMobi Investors]." ''[[.mobi]].'' Retrieved on 14 October 2007.</ref> In September 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service for its publishing partners which provides the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads,<ref name="adsense_mobile">"[http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/20070917_mobileads.html Google AdSense for Mobile unlocks the potential of the mobile advertising market]." ''Google''. 17 September 2007. Retrieved on 14 October 2007.</ref> and acquired the mobile social networking site, ''Zingku.mobi'', to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."<ref name="zingku">Niccolai, James. "[http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137853-c,google/article.html Google Buys Mobile Social Network Zingku]." ''[[PC World (magazine)|PC World]].'' 29 September 2007. Retrieved on 14 October 2007.</ref>

In 2006, Google and Fox Interactive Media of [[News Corporation|News Corp.]] entered into a US$900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, [[MySpace]].<ref name="googlemyspace">Staff Writer. "[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_August_7/ai_n16610613 Fox Interactive Media Enters into Landmark Agreement with Google Inc.; Multi-Year Pact Calls for Google to Provide Search and Advertising across Fox Interactive Media's Growing Online Network Including the MySpace Community]." ''Business Wire.'' 7 August 2006. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref>

Google has developed a partnership with [[GeoEye]] to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41m [[black and white]], 1.65m color) imagery for [[Google Earth]]. The satellite was launched from [[Vandenberg Air Force Base]] on 6 September 2008.<ref>[http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0633403420080906 Reuters - GeoEye launches high-resolution satellite]</ref>

In 2008, Google announced that it was hosting an archive of [[Life magazine]]'s photographs, as part of a joint effort. Some of the images in the archive were never published in the magazine.<ref>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Google gives online life to Life mag's photos |url=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hpwZcZap0g13zNOf8SxhiGlxYYCQD94I7JBO0 |quote=Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will include millions of images from Life magazine's archives that have never been seen by the public before. |agency=Associated Press |date=[[2008-11-19]] |accessdate=2008-11-19 }}</ref> The photos are [[watermark]]ed and originally had copyright notices posted on all photos, regardless of [[public domain]] status.<ref>http://searchengineland.com/google-to-host-10-million-time-life-unpublished-images-15513</ref><ref>http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/18/2230217</ref>

==Products and services==
[[Image:Google Appliance.jpg|thumb|upright|Google appliance as shown at [[RSA Conference]] 2008]]
{{main|List of Google products}}
Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

===Advertising===
99% of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs.<ref>Google Annual Report, Feb. 15, 2008</ref> For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported US$10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only US$112 million in licensing and other revenues.<ref name="10-K">{{cite web|url=http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312507044494/d10k.htm|title=Form 10-K &mdash; Annual Report|accessdate=2007-07-14|publisher=SEC|work=EDGAR}}</ref> Google is able to precisely track users' interests across affiliated sites using DoubleClick technology<ref>{{cite news|author=Nakashima, Ellen|title=Some Web Firms Say They Track Behavior Without Explicit Consent|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102270_pf.html|date=August 12, 2008|publisher=The Washington Post Company|work=The Washington Post|accessdate=2008-09-01}}</ref> and [[Google Analytics]].<ref>{{cite news|author=Bright, Peter|title=Surfing on the sly with IE8's new "InPrivate" Internet|url=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080827-surfing-on-the-sly-ie8s-inprivate-internet.html|date=August 27, 2008|publisher=Ars Technica|accessdate=2008-09-01}}</ref> Google's advertisements carry a lower price tag when their human ad-rating team working around the world believes the ads improve the company's [[user experience design|user experience]].<ref>{{cite news|author=Vogelstein, Fred|title=Why Google needs better antitrust advice|url=http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/why-google-need.html|work=Wired News|publisher=CondéNet|accessdate=2008-09-22}}</ref> Google [[AdWords]] allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme.{{Fact|date=September 2008}} Google [[AdSense]] website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.{{Fact|date=September 2008}} Google began in March 2009 to use [[behavioral targeting]] based on users' interests.<ref>{{cite web|author=Helft, Miguel|title=Google to Offer Ads Based on Interests |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/technology/internet/11google.html|publisher=The New York Times|date=March 11, 2009|accessdate=2009-03-10}}</ref>

Google has also been criticized by advertisers regarding its inability to combat [[click fraud]], when a person or automated script is used to generate a charge on an advertisement without really having an interest in the product. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid.<ref>Mills, Elinor. "[http://news.com.com/Google+to+offer+advertisers+click+fraud+stats/2100-1024_3-6098469.html Google to offer advertisers click fraud stats]." ''[http://www.cnet.com/ c net].'' 25 July 2006. Retrieved on 29 July 2006.</ref>

In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with [[Yahoo!]], which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on their web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized due to [[antitrust]] concerns by the [[U.S. Department of Justice]]. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November, 2008.<ref>[http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/10/31/yahoo-and-google-may-dump-their-deal/print/ ''Bloggingstocks'' "Yahoo and Google may dump their deal." Mclntyre, Douglas. Oct. 31, 2008.]</ref><ref>[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/ending-our-agreement-with-yahoo.html ''The Official Google Blog.'' "Ending our agreement with Yahoo!" Drummond, David. Nov. 5, 2008.]</ref>

===Software===
The [[Google search|Google web search engine]] is the company's most popular service. As of August 2007, Google is the most used [[search engine]] on the web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of [[Yahoo!]] (19.9%) and [[Live Search]] (12.9%).<ref name="searchmarketshare">"[http://rankabove.com/p/top-10-search-providers-august-2007/ August 2007 Search Share for Top 10 Search Engines from Nielsen//NetRatings] 26 October 2007. Retrieved on 26 October 2007.</ref> Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of [[keyword (Internet search)|keywords]] and [[operators]], although at any given time it will only return a maximum of 1,000 results for any specific search query. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, [[Google News]], the price comparison site [[Google Product Search]], the interactive [[Usenet]] archive [[Google Groups]], [[Google Maps]], and more.

In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based e-mail service, known as [[Gmail]] (or Google Mail in some jurisdictions).<ref name="gmail2004">Staff Writer. "[http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/01/technology/google_email/index.htm Google + e-mail = gmail]." ''[[CNN]].'' 1 August 2004. Retrieved on 23 February 2007.</ref> Gmail features conversation view, [[e-mail filtering|spam-filtering technology]], the capability to use Google technology to search e-mail. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements and links from the [[AdWords]] service that are tailored to the choice of the user and/or content of the e-mail messages displayed on screen.

In early 2006, the company launched [[Google Video]], which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the ability to publish their content, including television shows on [[CBS]], [[NBA]] basketball games, and music videos.<ref name="video2006">Tyler, Nathan. "[http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/video_marketplace.html Google to Launch Video Marketplace]." ''Google.'' 6 January 2006. Retrieved on 23 February 2007.</ref>

Google has also developed several desktop applications, including [[Google Desktop]], [[Picasa]], [[SketchUp]] and [[Google Earth]], an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications; contention is that the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources; the software simply makes accessing the information easier. A number of [[India]]n state governments have raised concerns about the security risks posed by geographic details provided by [[Google Earth]]'s satellite imaging.<ref name="satimgs">Sharma, Dinesh C. "[http://news.com.com/Indian+president+rails+against+Google+Earth/2100-1028_3-5896888.html?part=rss&tag=5896888&subj=news Indian president warns against Google Earth]." ''[http://www.cnet.com/ c net].'' 17 October 2005. Retrieved on 23 July 2006.</ref>

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In [[London]], ''Google Space'' was set-up in [[Heathrow Airport]], showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa.<ref name="googlespace">"[http://www.google.co.uk/googlespace/ Googlespace Website]." ''Google.'' Retrieved on 26 February 2007.</ref><ref name="heathrow">Donoghue, Andrew. "[http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39237536,00.htm Google turns Heathrow into testing lab]." ''[[ZDNet]].'' 24 November 2005. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name ''College Life, Powered by Google.''<ref name="collegelife">"[http://services.google.com/university/ College Life, Powered by Google Website]." Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref>

In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to [[Apple Inc.|Apple]]'s [[iPhone]].<ref name="orlowski">Orlowski, Andrew. "[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/16/google_phone_confirmed/ Google Phone - it's for real]." ''[[The Register]].'' 16 March 2007. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.</ref><ref name="smith">Smith, David. "[http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1973885,00.html The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket]." ''[[The Guardian]].'' 17 December 2006. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.</ref><ref name="ricker">Ricker, Thomas. "[http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/the-google-switch-an-iphone-killer/ The Google Switch: an iPhone killer?]." ''[[Engadget]].'' 18 January 2007. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.</ref> The project, called [[Android (mobile phone platform)|Android]], an [[operating system]] provides a standard development kit that will allow any "Android" phone to run software developed for the Android SDK, no matter the phone manufacturer. In September 2008, [[T-Mobile]] released the first phone running the Android platform, the [[T-Mobile G1|G1]].

[[Google Translate]] ([http://translate.google.com site]) aka Google Language Tools ([http://www.google.com/language_tools site]) is a server-side [[machine translation]] service, which can translate 35 different languages to each other, forming 595 language pairs. Browser extension tools (such as [[List of Firefox extensions#Google|Firefox extensions]]) allow for easy access to Google Translate from the browser. The software uses [[corpus linguistics]] techniques from translated documents, (such as [[United Nations]] documents,{{Fact|date=April 2009}} which are professionally translated) to extract translations accurate up to 88 percent. A "suggest a better translation" feature appears with the original language text in a pop-up text field, allowing users to indicate where the current translation is incorrect or else inferior to another translation.

On 1 September 2008, Google pre-announced the upcoming availability of [[Google Chrome]], an [[open source software|open-source]] [[web browser]],<ref>[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html Google Blog - A fresh take on the browser]</ref> which was released on 2 September 2008.

===Enterprise Products===
Google entered the Enterprise market in February, 2002 with the launch of its [[Google Search Appliance]], targeted toward providing search technology to larger organizations.<ref>[http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html Google - Corporate Information]</ref> Providing search for a smaller document repository, Google launched the [[Google Mini|Mini]] in 2005.

Late in 2006, Google began to sell [[Custom Search Business Edition]], providing customers with an advertising-free window into [[Google Search|Google.com]]'s index.<ref name="csbe2gss">[http://searchengineland.com/080603-095027.php Search Engine Land - Google Rebrands Custom Search "Business Edition" as "Google Site Search"]</ref> In 2008, Google re-branded its next version of Custom Search Business Edition as Google Site Search.<ref name="csbe2gss" />

In 2007, Google launched [[Google Apps|Google Apps Premier Edition]], a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of US$50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at [[Lakehead University]] in [[Thunder Bay]], Ontario, Canada.<ref name="rickwood">Rickwood, Lee. "[http://www.pcworld.ca:80/news/column/8088b6470a01040800f483b40707b39a/pg1.htm Google Apps: Killer software or killer decision?]." ''[http://www.pcworld.ca/ PCWorld.ca].'' 23 March 2007. Retrieved on 25 March 2007.</ref>

Also in 2007, Google acquired [[Postini]]<ref>[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/weve-officially-acquired-postini.html The Official Google Blog - We've Officially Acquired Postini]</ref> and continued to sell the acquired technology<ref>[http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/apps_postini_20071003.html Google Press Center - Google Adds Postini's Security and Compliance Capabilities to Google Apps]</ref> as [[Google Security Services]].<ref>[http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/security/index.html Google - Google Security Services]</ref>

==Platform==
{{main|Google platform}}
Google runs its services on several [[server farm]]s, each comprising thousands of low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of [[Linux]]. While the company divulges no details of its hardware, a 2006 estimate cites 450,000 servers, ''"racked up in clusters at data centers around the world."''<ref name="howgoogleworks">Carr, David F. "[http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Networks-and-Storage/How-Google-Works-%5B1%5D/ How Google Works]." ''[http://www.baselinemag.com/ Baseline Magazine].'' 6 July 2006. Retrieved on 7 February 2008.</ref> The company has about 24 [[server farm]]s around the world of various configurations. The farm in [[The Dalles, Oregon]] is powered by hydroelectricity at about 50 megawatts.<ref>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Google’s Green Agenda Could Pay Off |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28google.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss |quote=Still, a picture of the scale of its data center operations has emerged through various reports. The company is believed to have about two dozen data centers around the world of various sizes. Some, like the one it built in The Dalles, Ore., which is largely powered by hydroelectricity, are among the largest in the industry. Two people familiar with that facility, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that it was operating at about 50 megawatts — enough to power 37,500 homes — but was built to handle even more capacity. |work=[[New York Times]] |date=October 27, 2008 |accessdate=2008-10-30 }}</ref>

==Corporate affairs and culture==
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:Googler2-non.jpg|thumb|A [[Vehicle registration plate|license plate]] seen in the Googleplex parking lot.|{{ifdc|1=Image:Googler2-non.jpg|log=2008 29 April}}]] -->
[[Image:Schmidt-Brin-Page-20080520.jpg|thumb|left|Left to right, [[Eric E. Schmidt]], [[Sergey Brin]] and [[Larry Page]]]]
Google is known for its informal corporate culture, of which its playful variations on [[Google logo#History of the Google Doodle|its own corporate logo]] are an indicator. In 2007 and 2008, ''[[Fortune Magazine]]'' placed Google at the top of its list of the hundred best places to work.<ref name="best_company">"[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2007/full_list/ 100 Best Companies to Work For 2007]." ''[[Fortune Magazine]] (link published by [[CNN]]).'' 22 January 2007. Retrieved on 8 January 2007.</ref> Google's corporate philosophy embodies such casual principles as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."<ref>"[http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html Google Corporate Philosophy]." ''Google''. Retrieved on 31 August 2006.</ref>

Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards.<ref>"[http://www.mydanwei.com/query_salary.php?t_salary=google&type=salary&order_by=DATE_DESC Google Employee Salaries Data Survey] &mdash;Retrieved from mydanwei.com</ref> For example, some [[system administrator]]s earn no more than US$35,000 per year – considered to be quite low for the [[San Francisco Bay Area|Bay Area]] job market.<ref name="salaries">Penenberg, Adam L. "[http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/04/67287 Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart]." ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]].'' 21 April 2005. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref> However, Google's stock performance following its [[Initial public offering|IPO]] has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.<ref name="shinalj">Shinal, John. "[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/22/BUGCL8BS201.DTL Google IPO achieved its major goal: It's all about raising cash for the company and rewarding employees, early investors]." ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]].'' 22 August 2004. Retrieved on 25 February 2007.</ref>

After the company's [[IPO]] in August 2004, it was reported that founders [[Sergey Brin]] and [[Larry Page]], and CEO [[Eric E. Schmidt|Eric Schmidt]], requested that their base salary be cut to US$1.00.<ref name="topsalaries">La Monica, Paul R. "[http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/31/technology/google/index.htm Google leaders stick with $1 salary]." ''[[CNN]].'' 31 March 2006. Retrieved on 28 February 2007.</ref> Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down, primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct alignment with stockholder interests."<ref name="topsalaries" /> Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making US$250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of US$150,000.{{Dubious|date=May 2009}}<!--this is salary only, you have to count in stock options--><ref name="topsalaries" />

They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, [[Forbes]] reported that [[Sergey Brin]] and [[Larry Page]] were tied for #5 with a net worth of US$18.5 billion each.<ref>"[http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/54/richlist07_The-400-Richest-Americans_FinalWorth.html The 400 Richest Americans]." ''[[Forbes]].'' 20 September 2007. Retrieved on 22 September 2007.</ref>

In 2007 and through early 2008, Google has seen the departure of several top executives. Justin Rosenstein, Google’s product manager, left in June 2007.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://searchengineland.com/071010-223444.php|title="Google Checkout Googler Benjamin Ling Checksout to Facebook"|publisher=Search Engine Land|date=2007-10-10|accessdate=2008-03-31}}</ref> Shortly thereafter, Gideon Yu, former chief financial officer of [[YouTube]], a Google unit, joined [[Facebook]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://venturebeat.com/2008/03/04/facebook-hires-sheryl-sandberg-to-be-its-new-coo/|title="Another Googler goes to Facebook: Sheryl Sandburg becomes new COO"|publisher=Venture Beat|date=2008-03-04|accessdate=2008-03-31}}</ref> along with Benjamin Ling, a high-ranking engineer, who left in October 2007.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/04/news/newsmakers/moritz_google_exec.fortune/|title="Top Google exec jumps to Facebook"|publisher=Fortune|date=2008-03-04|accessdate=2008-03-31}}</ref> In March 2008, two senior Google leaders announced their desire to pursue other opportunities. Sheryl Sandburg, ex-VP of global online sales and operations began her position as COO of [[Facebook]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/04/AR2008030402766.html|title="Facebook Raids Google for Executive"|publisher=Washington Post|date=2008-03-05|accessdate=2008-03-31}}</ref> while Ash ElDifrawi, former head of brand advertising, left to become CMO of [[Netshops]] Inc.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.prnewswire.com/|title="Netshops Inc. Appoints Ash ElDifrawi as Company's First Chief Marketing Officer"|publisher=PR Newswire|date=2008-03-26|accessdate=2008-03-31}}</ref>

Google's persistent [[HTTP cookie|cookie]] and other information collection practices have led to concerns over user [[Google and privacy issues|privacy]]. As of 11 December 2007, Google, like the [[Microsoft]] search engine, stores "personal information for 18 months" and by comparison, [[AOL]] ([[Time Warner]]) "retain[s] search requests for 13 months"<ref>{{cite news|author=Liedtke, Michael|title=Ask.com will purge search info in hours|url=http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071211/BIZ/712110335|work=Journal Gazette|publisher=Fort Wayne Newspapers|date=11 December 2007|accessdate=2007-12-11}}</ref>, and [[Yahoo!]] 90 days.<ref>http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/18/business/fi-yahoo18</ref>

U.S. District Court Judge [[Louis Stanton]], on July 1, 2008 ordered Google to give [[YouTube]] user data / log to [[Viacom]] to support its case in a billion-dollar [[copyright]] lawsuit against Google.<ref>[http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvFPgT3MNrzaN7r-Y37eFI-qv4bA Afp.google.com, Judge orders Google to give YouTube user data to Viacom]</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7488009.stm bbc.co.uk, Google must divulge YouTube log]</ref> Google and [[Viacom]], however, on July 14, 2008, agreed in [[compromise]] to protect [[YouTube]] users' personal data in the $1 billion (£ 497 million) copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the [[FA Premier League]], the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation and the [[Scottish Premier League]].<ref>[http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP21085220080715 reuters.com, Lawyers in YouTube lawsuit reach user privacy deal]</ref><ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/15/googlethemedia.digitalmedia?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront guardian.co.uk/media, Google and Viacom reach deal over YouTube user data]</ref> The deal however did not extend the anonymity to employees, since Viacom would prove that Google staff are aware of uploading of illegal material to the site. The parties therefore will further meet on the matter lest the data be made available to the court.<ref>[http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/831528/Viacom-backs-down-YouTube-lawsuit/ brandrepublic.com, Viacom backs down over YouTube lawsuit]</ref>

===Googleplex===
[[Image:Googleplexsouthsidesecondangle.jpg|thumb|right|The Googleplex]]
{{main|Googleplex}}
Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the [[Googleplex]]" in a play of words; a [[googolplex]] being 10<sup>10<sup>100</sup></sup>, or a one followed by a [[googol]] of zeros, and the HQ being a [[complex]] of buildings (cf. [[movie theater|multiplex]], cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a [[piano]], [[lava lamps]], old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and [[bicycle]]s. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted [[video game]]s, [[foosball]], a [[piano|baby grand piano]], a [[billiard table|pool table]], and [[ping pong]]. In addition to the [[Recreation room|rec room]], there are snack rooms stocked with various foods and drinks.<ref>"[http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html About the Googleplex]." ''Google''. Retrieved on 5 March 2008.</ref>
[[Image:Googleplex Welcome Sign.jpg|thumb|left|Sign at the Googleplex]]

In 2006, Google moved into {{convert|311000|sqft|m2|-2}} of office space in [[New York City]], at 111 [[Eighth Avenue|Eighth Ave.]] in Manhattan.<ref name="manhattan">Reardon, Marguerite. "[http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-6121970.html Google takes a bigger bite of Big Apple]." ''[http://www.cnet.com/ c net].'' 2 October 2006. Retrieved on 9 October 2006.</ref> The office was specially designed and built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with [[MySpace]] and [[AOL]].<ref name="manhattan" /> In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including [[Google Maps]], [[Google Spreadsheet]]s, and others.<ref name="manhattan" /> It is estimated that the building costs Google US$10 million per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its [[Mountain View, California|Mountain View]] headquarters, including [[foosball]], [[air hockey]], and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.<ref name="manhattan" /> In November 2006, Google opened offices on [[Carnegie Mellon]]'s campus in [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|Pittsburgh]].<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/technology/10346550/detail.html | title = Google Completes Pittsburgh Office, Holds Open House | date = 17 November 2006 | accessdate = 2008-01-13 | work = [[WTAE]] ThePittsburghChannel }}</ref> By late 2006, Google also established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in [[Ann Arbor, Michigan]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202600809| title=Inside Google's Michigan Office| date=24 October 2007| publisher=[[InformationWeek]]}}</ref>

Google is taking steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of [[Photovoltaic module|solar panels]] to provide up to 1.6&nbsp;[[megawatt]]s of [[electricity]], enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.<ref name="solar">Richmond, Riva. "[http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=mktw&guid=%7B630082C7-5370-46C2-8041-FC3FCA28CA16%7D Google plans to build huge solar energy system for headquarters]." ''[http://www.marketwatch.com/ MarketWatch].'' 17 October 2006. Retrieved on 17 October 2006.</ref> The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.<ref name="solar" /> Google has faced accusations in [[Harper's Magazine]]<ref>Strand, Ginger. "[http://www.harpers.org/media/slideshow/annot/2008-03/index.html Keyword: Evil]." Retrieved on 2008-04-09.</ref> of being extremely excessive with their energy usage, and were accused of employing their "[[Don't be evil]]" motto as well as their very public energy saving campaigns as means of trying to cover up or make up for the massive amounts of energy their servers actually require.

In 2009 Google announced it was deploying herds of goats to keep grassland around the Googleplex short, helping to prevent the threat from seasonal bush fires while also reducing the carbon footprint of mowing the extensive grounds.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090501/oddities/us_it_internet_offbeat_google| title=Google fields low-tech wildfire protection| date=02 May 2009| publisher=[[CA News]]}}</ref>

===Innovation Time Off===
As an interesting motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), all Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as [[Gmail]], [[Google News]], [[Orkut]], and [[AdSense]] originated from these independent endeavors.<ref>"[http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html What's it like to work in Engineering, Operations, & IT?]." ''Google.'' Retrieved on 2 August 2006.</ref> In a talk at [[Stanford University]], [[Marissa Mayer]], Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.<ref>Mayer, Marissa. "[http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/msande472/060517-msande472-300.asx MS&E 472 Course: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar Series]." (video link; an [http://www.stanford.edu/group/edcorner/uploads/podcast/mayer060517.mp3 audio podcast] is also available in [[MP3]] format). ''[http://etl.stanford.edu/ ETL Seminar Series]/[[Stanford University]].'' 17 May 2006. Retrieved on 2 August 2006.</ref>

===Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes===
{{main|Google's hoaxes}}
Google has a tradition of creating [[April Fool's Day]] jokes&mdash;such as [[Google's hoaxes#2000|Google MentalPlex]], which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.<ref name="mentalplex">"[http://www.google.com/mentalplex/ Google MentalPlex]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2000. Retrieved on 22 February 2007.</ref> In 2002, they claimed that [[pigeons]] were the [[Google's hoaxes#2002: Pigeon Rank|secret]] behind their growing [[search engine]].<ref name="pigeonrank">"[http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html The technology behind Google's great results]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2002. Retrieved on 22 February 2007.</ref> In 2004, they featured [[Google's hoaxes#2004: Google Lunar/Copernicus Center|Google Lunar]] (which claimed to feature jobs on the [[moon]]),<ref name="copernicus">"[http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html Google Copernicus Center is hiring]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2004. Retrieved on 22 February 2007.</ref> and in 2005, a [[fiction|fictitious]] brain-boosting drink, termed [[Google's hoaxes#2005: Google Gulp|Google Gulp]] was announced.<ref name="gulp">"[http://www.google.com/googlegulp/ Quench your thirst for knowledge]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2005. Retrieved on 22 February 2007.</ref> In 2006, they came up with [[Google's hoaxes#2006: Google Romance|Google Romance]], a hypothetical [[online dating]] service.<ref name="romance">Fox, Lynn. "[http://www.google.com/romance/press.html Google to Organize World's Courtship Information with Google Romance]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2006. Retrieved on 22 February 2007.</ref> In 2007, Google announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called [[TiSP]] (Toilet Internet Service Provider)<ref name="TiSP">"[http://www.google.com/tisp/ Welcome to Google TiSP]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2007. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.</ref> in which one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a [[fiber-optic]] cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet.<ref name="TiSP"/> Additionally, Google's [[Gmail]] page displayed an announcement for [[Gmail Paper]], which allows users of their free email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address.<ref name="gmail_paper">"[http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/more.html Gmail Paper]." ''Google.'' 1 April 2007. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.</ref>

Google's services contain a number of [[Easter egg (virtual)|Easter eggs]]; for instance, the Language Tools page offers the search interface in the [[Swedish Chef]]'s "Bork bork bork," [[Pig Latin]], "Hacker" (actually [[leetspeak]]), [[Elmer Fudd]], and [[Klingon language|Klingon]].<ref>"[http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en Language Tools]." ''Google.'' Retrieved on 24 January 2007.</ref> <!--When asked how to get from a location in the U.S. to a location in Europe (or vice versa), Google Maps will provide directions that include an instruction to "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean."<ref name="atlantic">"[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=North+America&daddr=Germany Google Maps]." ''Google.'' Retrieved on 2 May 2007.</ref>--> In addition, the search engine calculator provides the [[Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything]] from [[Douglas Adams]]' ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''.<ref>"[http://www.google.com/search?q=answer+to+life+the+universe+and+everything Google Search Results for 'answer to life the universe and everything']." ''Google.'' Retrieved on 24 January 2007.</ref> As Google’s search box can be used as a unit converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the [[Smoot]]. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or special events throughout the year, such as [[Christmas]], [[Mother's Day]], or the [[birthday]]s of various notable individuals.<ref name="google_holiday">"[http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html Holiday logos]." ''Google''. Retrieved on 21 May 2007.</ref>

===IPO and culture===
Many people speculated that Google's [[initial public offering|IPO]] would inevitably lead to changes in the company's culture,<ref>[[Associated Press]]. "[http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/04/63241 Quirky Google Culture Endangered?]" ''[[Wired Magazine]].'' 28 April 2004.</ref> because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture.<ref>Baertlein, Lisa. "[http://www.ciol.com/content/news/2004/104043001.asp Google IPO at $2.7 billion]." ''CIOL IT Unlimited.'' 30 April 2004.</ref> Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed university campus than a typical suburban office park."<ref name="davidvise">Vise, David A. "[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6742-2004Aug16.html Tactics of 'Google Guys' Test IPO Law's Limits]." ''[[Washington Post]].'' 17 August 2004. Retrieved on 23 February 2007.</ref> Google has faced allegations of [[sexism]] and [[ageism]] from former employees.<ref>Kawamoto, Dawn. "[http://news.com.com/Google+hit+with+job+discrimination+lawsuit/2100-1030_3-5807158.html?tag=nl Google hit with job discrimination lawsuit]." ''[http://www.news.com/ c|net news.com].'' 27 July 2005.</ref><ref>Staff Writer. "[http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071006/google_old_071006/20071006 Google accused of ageism in reinstated lawsuit]." ''[[CTV Television Network|CTV]].'' 6 October 2007. Retrieved on 5 April 2008.</ref>

However, many analysts{{Who|February 2009|date=March 2009}} are finding that as Google grows, the company is becoming more "corporate". In 2005, articles in ''[[The New York Times]]'' and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.<ref>Rivlin, Gary. "[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/technology/24valley.html Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain]." ''[[New York Times]].'' 24 August 2005.</ref><ref>Gibson, Owen; Wray, Richard. "[http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/search-giant-may-outgrow-its-fans/2005/08/25/1124562975596.html3001.asp Search giant may outgrow its fans]." ''[[The Sydney Morning Herald]].'' 25 August 2005.</ref><ref>Ranka, Mohit. "[http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17928/Google--Dont-Be-Evil Google - Don't Be Evil]."''[[OSNews]].'' 17 May 2007.</ref>
In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google has designated a Chief Culture Officer in 2006, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on in the beginning—a flat organization with a collaborative environment.<ref name="CCO">Mills, Elinor. "[http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/Meet-Google-s-culture-czar/0,139023769,339275147,00.htm Meet Google's culture czar]." ''[[ZDNet]].'' 30 April 2007. Retrieved on 30 April 2007.</ref>

===Philanthropy===
{{main|Google.org}}
In 2004, Google formed a for-profit philanthropic wing, [[Google.org]], with a start-up fund of US$1 billion.<ref name="philanthropy">"[http://www.google.org/about.html About the Foundation]." ''[[Google.org]].'' Retrieved on 11 October 2007.</ref> The express mission of the organization is to create awareness about [[climate change]], global public health, and [[global poverty]]. One of its first projects is to develop a viable [[plug-in hybrid]] [[electric vehicle]] that can attain 100 [[fuel economy in automobiles|mpg]]. The founding and current director is Dr. [[Larry Brilliant]].<ref>Hafner, Katie. "[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual]." ''[[The New York Times]].'' 14 September 2006. Retrieved on 11 October 2007.</ref>

In 2008 Google announced its "project 10^100" which accepted ideas for how to help the community and then will allow google users to vote on their favorites.<ref>[http://www.project10tothe100.com Project 10 to the 100th]</ref>

=== Network Neutrality ===
Google is a noted supporter of [[network neutrality]]. According to Google's ''Guide to Net Neutrality'':
<blockquote>
"Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days... Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online." <ref>[http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html Net Neutrality<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
</blockquote>
On [[February 7]], [[2006]], [[Vinton Cerf]], a co-inventor of the [[Internet Protocol]] (IP), and current Vice President and "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google, in testimony before Congress, said, "allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success."<ref>{{cite web|author=Cerf, Vinton|authorlink=Vinton Cerf|title=The Testimony of Mr. Vinton Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google|url=http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=dc5f850f-8c38-4501-9f05-478dcafe63c0&Witness_ID=b9a1d672-ad72-4da8-a7e2-e10b0870935c|accessdate=2008-05-04|format=PDF|pages=8|date=[[2006-02-07]]}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Div col|cols=3}}
*[[Criticism of Google]]
*[[List of Google products]]
*[[Google China]] - Chinese subsidiary
*[[Google File System]] - internal distributed file system
*[[Google guidelines]]
*[[Google logo]]
*[[Google platform]] - server and system hardware architecture with geographic references
*[[Google search]]
*[[Google Translate]] - web translator
*[[Google's hoaxes]]
*[[Googlebot]] - web crawler
*[[Google Ventures]] - [[venture capital]] fund
*[[Googleshare]]
*[[Google Voice]]
*[[Search engine]]
*[[TrustRank]]
*[[Censorship by Google]]
{{Div col end}}

==References==
<!-- This article uses [[Wikipedia:Footnotes]]. Please use this format in the article text when inserting references. Any external link inserted directly into this section will be swiftly deleted. -->
{{reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|title=The Google Story|author=David Vise and Mark Malseed|publisher=Delacorte Press|date=2005-11-15|isbn=0-553-80457-X}}
* {{cite book|title=The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture|author=[[John Battelle]]|publisher=Portfolio Hardcover|date=2005-09-08|isbn=1-59184-088-0}}

==External links==
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{{sisterlinks|Google}}
*[http://www.google.com/ Google.com]
*[http://www.google.com/corporate/ Corporate Homepage]
*[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ Official Google Blog]
*[http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660&org=NSF On the Origins of Google]
*[http://research.google.com/ Google Research]
*{{cite web |url=http://google.com/ |title=Earliest known google website from 1998 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/19981111184551/http://www.google.com/
|archivedate=1998-11-11}} - [[archive.org]]
*[http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html online museum of google logos] mostly from events and holidays

{{Google Inc.|corporate=yes|products=yes}}
{{Open Handset Alliance Members}}
{{NASDAQ-100}}

[[Category:Google| ]]
[[Category:Mobile Payment]]
[[Category:Internet history]]
[[Category:World Wide Web]]
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Revision as of 19:08, 26 May 2009

Google Inc.
Company typePublic
NasdaqGOOG
LSEGGEA
IndustryInternet, Computer software
FoundedMenlo Park, California (September 4, 1998)[1]
FounderSergey M. Brin
Lawrence E. Page
Headquarters
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Ph.D.
(Chairman) & (CEO)
Sergey M. Brin
(Technology President)
Lawrence E. Page
(Products President)
ProductsSee list of Google products
RevenueIncrease31.3% $ 21.796 billion (2008)[2]
Increase30.4% $ 6.632 billion (2008)[2]
Increase.6% $ 4.227 billion (2008)[2]
Total assetsIncrease $ 31.768 billion (2008)[2]
Total equityIncrease $ 28.239 billion (2008)[2]
Number of employees
20,164 - March 2009[3]
WebsiteGoogle.com

Google Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. As of March 31, 2009, the company has 20,164 full-time employees.

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, implying a value for the entire corporation of US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy and positive employee relations have been important tenets during the growth of Google. The company has been identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work,[4] and as the most powerful brand in the world[5] (according to the Millward Brown Group).

The Company describes its mission as follows:

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

— Google, Corporate Information[6]

The unofficial company slogan, coined by former employee and Gmail's first engineer[7] Paul Buchheit, is "Don't be evil".[8][9][10] Criticism of Google includes concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, censorship and discontinuation of services.[11]

History

Google in 1998
The first iteration of Google production servers was built with inexpensive hardware and was designed to be very fault-tolerant

Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, when they were both Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California.[12] They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.[13] Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.[14][15] A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.[16]

Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally, the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on 15 September 1997,[17] and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on 4 September 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company amounted to almost US$1.1 million, including a US$100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.[18]

In March 1999, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[19] After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003.[20] The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for US$319 million.[21]

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and useful results.[22] In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords.[12] The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[12] Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at US$.05 per click.[12] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).[23][24][25] Goto.com was an Idealab spin off created by Bill Gross, and was the first company to successfully provide a pay-for-placement search service. Overture Services later sued Google over alleged infringements of Overture's pay-per-click and bidding patents by Google's AdWords service. The case was settled out of court, with Google agreeing to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.[26] Thus, while many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[12]

The name "Google" originated from a common misspelling of the word "googol",[27][28] which refers to 10100, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google", was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[29][30]

A patent describing part of the Google ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on 4 September 2001.[31] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Financing and initial public offering

The first funding for Google as a company was secured in August 1998, in the form of a US$100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which did not yet exist.[32]

On June 7, 1999 a round of funding of $25 million was announced,[33] with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[32]

The Google IPO took place on 19 August 2004. 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of US$85 per share.[34][35] Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as √2 ≈ 1.4142135) were floated by Google, and the remaining 5,462,917 were offered by existing stockholders. The sale of US$1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than US$23 billion.[36] The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google. Many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google as of 9 August 2004, ten days before the IPO.[37]

The stock performance of Google after its first IPO launch has gone well, with shares hitting US$700 for the first time on 31 October 2007,[38] due to strong sales and earnings in the advertising market, as well as the release of new features such as the desktop search function and its iGoogle personalized home page.[39] The surge in stock price is fueled primarily by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[39]

The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG and under the London Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGEA.

Growth

While the primary business interest is in the web content arena, Google has begun experimenting with other markets, such as radio and print publications. On 17 January 2006, Google announced that its purchase of a radio advertising company "dMarc", which provides an automated system that allows companies to advertise on the radio.[40] This will allow Google to combine two niche advertising media—the Internet and radio—with Google's ability to laser-focus on the tastes of consumers. Google has also begun an experiment in selling advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.[41] They have been filling unsold space in the newspaper that would have normally been used for in-house advertisements.

Acquisitions

Since 2001, Google has acquired several small start-up companies.

In 2004, Google acquired a company called Keyhole, Inc.,[42] which developed a product called Earth Viewer which was renamed in 2005 to Google Earth[citation needed].

In February 2006, software company Adaptive Path sold Measure Map, a weblog statistics application, to Google. Registration to the service has since been temporarily disabled. The last update regarding the future of Measure Map was made on 6 April 2006 and outlined many of the known issues of the service.[43]

In late 2006, Google bought the online video site YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock.[44] Shortly after, on 31 October 2006, Google announced that it had also acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites.[45]

On 13 April 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick. Google agreed to buy the company for US$3.1 billion.[46]

On 2 July 2007, Google purchased GrandCentral. Google agreed to buy the company for US$50 million.[47]

On 9 July 2007, Google announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini.[48]

Partnerships

In 2005, Google entered into partnerships with other companies and government agencies to improve production and services. Google announced a partnership with NASA Ames Research Center to build up 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of offices and work on research projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry.[49] Google also entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October to help share and distribute each other's technologies.[50] The company entered into a partnership with AOL of Time Warner,[51] to enhance each other's video search services.

The same year, the company became a major financial investor of the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, in conjunction with several other companies, including Microsoft, Nokia, and Ericsson among others.[52] In September 2007, Google launched, "Adsense for Mobile", a service for its publishing partners which provides the ability to monetize their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads,[53] and acquired the mobile social networking site, Zingku.mobi, to "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."[54]

In 2006, Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corp. entered into a US$900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the popular social networking site, MySpace.[55]

Google has developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41m black and white, 1.65m color) imagery for Google Earth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 6 September 2008.[56]

In 2008, Google announced that it was hosting an archive of Life magazine's photographs, as part of a joint effort. Some of the images in the archive were never published in the magazine.[57] The photos are watermarked and originally had copyright notices posted on all photos, regardless of public domain status.[58][59]

Products and services

Google appliance as shown at RSA Conference 2008

Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.

Advertising

99% of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs.[60] For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported US$10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only US$112 million in licensing and other revenues.[61] Google is able to precisely track users' interests across affiliated sites using DoubleClick technology[62] and Google Analytics.[63] Google's advertisements carry a lower price tag when their human ad-rating team working around the world believes the ads improve the company's user experience.[64] Google AdWords allows Web advertisers to display advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme.[citation needed] Google AdSense website owners can also display adverts on their own site, and earn money every time ads are clicked.[citation needed] Google began in March 2009 to use behavioral targeting based on users' interests.[65]

Google has also been criticized by advertisers regarding its inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script is used to generate a charge on an advertisement without really having an interest in the product. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid.[66]

In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on their web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized due to antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November, 2008.[67][68]

Software

The Google web search engine is the company's most popular service. As of August 2007, Google is the most used search engine on the web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (19.9%) and Live Search (12.9%).[69] Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keywords and operators, although at any given time it will only return a maximum of 1,000 results for any specific search query. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps, and more.

In 2004, Google launched its own free web-based e-mail service, known as Gmail (or Google Mail in some jurisdictions).[70] Gmail features conversation view, spam-filtering technology, the capability to use Google technology to search e-mail. The service generates revenue by displaying advertisements and links from the AdWords service that are tailored to the choice of the user and/or content of the e-mail messages displayed on screen.

In early 2006, the company launched Google Video, which not only allows users to search and view freely available videos but also offers users and media publishers the ability to publish their content, including television shows on CBS, NBA basketball games, and music videos.[71]

Google has also developed several desktop applications, including Google Desktop, Picasa, SketchUp and Google Earth, an interactive mapping program powered by satellite and aerial imagery that covers the vast majority of the planet. Many major cities have such detailed images that one can zoom in close enough to see vehicles and pedestrians clearly. Consequently, there have been some concerns about national security implications; contention is that the software can be used to pinpoint with near-precision accuracy the physical location of critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, bases, government agencies, and so on. However, the satellite images are not necessarily frequently updated, and all of them are available at no charge through other products and even government sources; the software simply makes accessing the information easier. A number of Indian state governments have raised concerns about the security risks posed by geographic details provided by Google Earth's satellite imaging.[72]

Google has promoted their products in various ways. In London, Google Space was set-up in Heathrow Airport, showcasing several products, including Gmail, Google Earth and Picasa.[73][74] Also, a similar page was launched for American college students, under the name College Life, Powered by Google.[75]

In 2007, some reports surfaced that Google was planning the release of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to Apple's iPhone.[76][77][78] The project, called Android, an operating system provides a standard development kit that will allow any "Android" phone to run software developed for the Android SDK, no matter the phone manufacturer. In September 2008, T-Mobile released the first phone running the Android platform, the G1.

Google Translate (site) aka Google Language Tools (site) is a server-side machine translation service, which can translate 35 different languages to each other, forming 595 language pairs. Browser extension tools (such as Firefox extensions) allow for easy access to Google Translate from the browser. The software uses corpus linguistics techniques from translated documents, (such as United Nations documents,[citation needed] which are professionally translated) to extract translations accurate up to 88 percent. A "suggest a better translation" feature appears with the original language text in a pop-up text field, allowing users to indicate where the current translation is incorrect or else inferior to another translation.

On 1 September 2008, Google pre-announced the upcoming availability of Google Chrome, an open-source web browser,[79] which was released on 2 September 2008.

Enterprise Products

Google entered the Enterprise market in February, 2002 with the launch of its Google Search Appliance, targeted toward providing search technology to larger organizations.[80] Providing search for a smaller document repository, Google launched the Mini in 2005.

Late in 2006, Google began to sell Custom Search Business Edition, providing customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index.[81] In 2008, Google re-branded its next version of Custom Search Business Edition as Google Site Search.[81]

In 2007, Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition, a version of Google Apps targeted primarily at the business user. It includes such extras as more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of US$50 per user per year. A large implementation of Google Apps with 38,000 users is at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.[82]

Also in 2007, Google acquired Postini[83] and continued to sell the acquired technology[84] as Google Security Services.[85]

Platform

Google runs its services on several server farms, each comprising thousands of low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. While the company divulges no details of its hardware, a 2006 estimate cites 450,000 servers, "racked up in clusters at data centers around the world."[86] The company has about 24 server farms around the world of various configurations. The farm in The Dalles, Oregon is powered by hydroelectricity at about 50 megawatts.[87]

Corporate affairs and culture

Left to right, Eric E. Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page

Google is known for its informal corporate culture, of which its playful variations on its own corporate logo are an indicator. In 2007 and 2008, Fortune Magazine placed Google at the top of its list of the hundred best places to work.[4] Google's corporate philosophy embodies such casual principles as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."[88]

Google has been criticized for having salaries below industry standards.[89] For example, some system administrators earn no more than US$35,000 per year – considered to be quite low for the Bay Area job market.[90] However, Google's stock performance following its IPO has enabled many early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth.[91]

After the company's IPO in August 2004, it was reported that founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and CEO Eric Schmidt, requested that their base salary be cut to US$1.00.[92] Subsequent offers by the company to increase their salaries have been turned down, primarily because, "their primary compensation continues to come from returns on their ownership stakes in Google. As significant stockholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to sustained stock price appreciation and performance, which provides direct alignment with stockholder interests."[92] Prior to 2004, Schmidt was making US$250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each earned a salary of US$150,000.[dubiousdiscuss][92]

They have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. In a 2007 report of the United States' richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were tied for #5 with a net worth of US$18.5 billion each.[93]

In 2007 and through early 2008, Google has seen the departure of several top executives. Justin Rosenstein, Google’s product manager, left in June 2007.[94] Shortly thereafter, Gideon Yu, former chief financial officer of YouTube, a Google unit, joined Facebook[95] along with Benjamin Ling, a high-ranking engineer, who left in October 2007.[96] In March 2008, two senior Google leaders announced their desire to pursue other opportunities. Sheryl Sandburg, ex-VP of global online sales and operations began her position as COO of Facebook[97] while Ash ElDifrawi, former head of brand advertising, left to become CMO of Netshops Inc.[98]

Google's persistent cookie and other information collection practices have led to concerns over user privacy. As of 11 December 2007, Google, like the Microsoft search engine, stores "personal information for 18 months" and by comparison, AOL (Time Warner) "retain[s] search requests for 13 months"[99], and Yahoo! 90 days.[100]

U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton, on July 1, 2008 ordered Google to give YouTube user data / log to Viacom to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against Google.[101][102] Google and Viacom, however, on July 14, 2008, agreed in compromise to protect YouTube users' personal data in the $1 billion (£ 497 million) copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the FA Premier League, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation and the Scottish Premier League.[103][104] The deal however did not extend the anonymity to employees, since Viacom would prove that Google staff are aware of uploading of illegal material to the site. The parties therefore will further meet on the matter lest the data be made available to the court.[105]

Googleplex

The Googleplex

Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, is referred to as "the Googleplex" in a play of words; a googolplex being 1010100, or a one followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf. multiplex, cineplex, etc). The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, foosball, a baby grand piano, a pool table, and ping pong. In addition to the rec room, there are snack rooms stocked with various foods and drinks.[106]

Sign at the Googleplex

In 2006, Google moved into 311,000 square feet (28,900 m2) of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan.[107] The office was specially designed and built for Google and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships, most recently deals with MySpace and AOL.[107] In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google Spreadsheets, and others.[107] It is estimated that the building costs Google US$10 million per year to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View headquarters, including foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.[107] In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh.[108] By late 2006, Google also established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[109]

Google is taking steps to ensure that their operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.[110] The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.[110] Google has faced accusations in Harper's Magazine[111] of being extremely excessive with their energy usage, and were accused of employing their "Don't be evil" motto as well as their very public energy saving campaigns as means of trying to cover up or make up for the massive amounts of energy their servers actually require.

In 2009 Google announced it was deploying herds of goats to keep grassland around the Googleplex short, helping to prevent the threat from seasonal bush fires while also reducing the carbon footprint of mowing the extensive grounds.[112]

Innovation Time Off

As an interesting motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), all Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.[113] In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.[114]

Easter eggs and April Fool's Day jokes

Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes—such as Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.[115] In 2002, they claimed that pigeons were the secret behind their growing search engine.[116] In 2004, they featured Google Lunar (which claimed to feature jobs on the moon),[117] and in 2005, a fictitious brain-boosting drink, termed Google Gulp was announced.[118] In 2006, they came up with Google Romance, a hypothetical online dating service.[119] In 2007, Google announced two joke products. The first was a free wireless Internet service called TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider)[120] in which one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet and waiting only an hour for a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)" to connect it to the Internet.[120] Additionally, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, which allows users of their free email service to have email messages printed and shipped to a snail mail address.[121]

Google's services contain a number of Easter eggs; for instance, the Language Tools page offers the search interface in the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, "Hacker" (actually leetspeak), Elmer Fudd, and Klingon.[122] In addition, the search engine calculator provides the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[123] As Google’s search box can be used as a unit converter (as well as a calculator), some non-standard units are built in, such as the Smoot. Google also routinely modifies its logo in accordance with various holidays or special events throughout the year, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, or the birthdays of various notable individuals.[124]

IPO and culture

Many people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably lead to changes in the company's culture,[125] because of shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions and short-term advances, or because a large number of the company's employees would suddenly become millionaires on paper. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[126] Later Mr. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements. We spent a lot of time getting our offices right. We think it's important to have a high density of people. People are packed together everywhere. We all share offices. We like this set of buildings because it's more like a densely packed university campus than a typical suburban office park."[127] Google has faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.[128][129]

However, many analysts[who?] are finding that as Google grows, the company is becoming more "corporate". In 2005, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[130][131][132] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google has designated a Chief Culture Officer in 2006, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on in the beginning—a flat organization with a collaborative environment.[133]

Philanthropy

In 2004, Google formed a for-profit philanthropic wing, Google.org, with a start-up fund of US$1 billion.[134] The express mission of the organization is to create awareness about climate change, global public health, and global poverty. One of its first projects is to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 mpg. The founding and current director is Dr. Larry Brilliant.[135]

In 2008 Google announced its "project 10^100" which accepted ideas for how to help the community and then will allow google users to vote on their favorites.[136]

Network Neutrality

Google is a noted supporter of network neutrality. According to Google's Guide to Net Neutrality:

"Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days... Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online." [137]

On February 7, 2006, Vinton Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol (IP), and current Vice President and "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google, in testimony before Congress, said, "allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success."[138]

See also

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Further reading

  • David Vise and Mark Malseed (2005-11-15). The Google Story. Delacorte Press. ISBN 0-553-80457-X.
  • John Battelle (2005-09-08). The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. Portfolio Hardcover. ISBN 1-59184-088-0.

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