Google

Google LLC is an American technology services company founded in Silicon Valley, California, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, creators of the Google search engine. It has been a subsidiary of Alphabet since August 2015.

The company has mainly made itself known through the monopolistic situation of its search engine, historically competing with AltaVista and then with Yahoo! and Bing. It then made many acquisitions and developments and now owns many notable software and websites including YouTube, the operating system for Android mobile phones, as well as other services such as Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps or Google Play.

After Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, its CEO is, since 2015, Pichai Sundararajan.

The company has become one of the first American and global companies by its stock market valuation, a few years after an original IPO. At the beginning of 2008, it was worth $176 billion on Wall Street. On February 1, 2016, its market capitalization surpassed that of Apple and became the first in the United States, with a total of $550 billion scattered across its various stock classes.

In 2014, Interbrand’s Best Global Brands ranking positioned the Google brand in second place worldwide, behind the Apple brand, with an estimated value of $107.43 billion (+15% compared to 2013), surpassing the one hundred billion dollar mark for the first time since the ranking’s inception in 1974. In 2016, the Brand Z Top 100 ranking placed Google in first place ahead of Apple.

The company has approximately 50,000 employees. Most work at the global headquarters: the Googleplex in Mountain View, California.

Google is one of the largest companies in the Internet market and, along with Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, is one of the web giants (also known as GAFAM). In 2011, the corporation had a fleet of more than 900,000 servers, up from 400,000 in 2006, making it the largest server fleet in the world (2% of the total number of machines), with devices spread across 32 sites. Meanwhile, the Google search engine indexed more than 1,000 billion web pages in 2008. In October 2010, Google accounted for 6.4% of global Internet traffic and grew faster than Web21. In Europe, Google would have a market share of 93% for search engines.

Beyond the search engine, Google offers many free software and services (e-mail, office suite, video, photo, blog, etc.) and is financed by advertising since the year 2000, mainly with a sponsored link principle in search results and a “cost per click” billing for advertisers. However, the growing monopoly situation and privacy issues are of growing concern, from the casual Internet user to some large organizations. Google has also been the subject of several lawsuits, including several copyright compatibility cases and its Google Books platform.

Origin of the name Google

The name of the company Google originates from the mathematical term “googol” or gogol in English, which designates 10, that is, a number starting with 1, followed by one hundred zeros. Larry Page and Sergey Brin asked other computer science students for help in 1997 to name the fruit of their work. The idea would have come from Sean Anderson, who suggested “googolplex”, a name that seduced Larry Page. He asked her to go and register the domain name “googol”. Sean Anderson would then have made a mistake in the entry of the name, hitting google.com. Other sources claim that since the domain name googol.com was no longer available (already assigned since April 1995), the name was changed voluntarily.

Whatever the reason, Google takes the place of googol, simpler and easier to remember for an English speaker, and it will become famous all over the world: in 2006, the name of the search engine, then of the company, was among the ten most famous brands in the world and has since become the first brand known worldwide. Some dictionaries have now included the verb to Google in their pages, with the meaning of using the Google search engine to get information about the web.

Moreover, the similarity with the English word goggles meaning “glasses”, recalls the two [O] of the brand. If we can’t attribute the origin, the company uses this play on words in one of its photo search services: Google Goggles. Also, 10 (a number 1 followed by a gogol of zeros) is called a googleplex, from which comes the name of Google Headquarters.

This term symbolizes the goals that Google has set itself: “to organize the immense volume of information available on the Web and in the world”. Indeed, if the number of indexable web pages is gigantic (more than a thousand billion), it remains minimal compared to a gogol. This number, from which the name Google is derived, expresses the potentially colossal and universal dimensions of the world of the Internet, the company’s only field of activity.

History

Birth

The foundations of Google’s company history begin with the meeting of two Stanford University students in 1995. Twenty-three-year-old Sergey Brin and twenty-four-year-old Larry Page “practically disagreed on everything.” However, this did not prevent them, in January 1996, from starting work on a new search engine.

The founders of the search engine, then Ph.D. students, observed how the results were ranked when they searched scientific databases. They note that the exploitation of the information contained in the hypertextual structure depends on the nature of the links between those documents. Thus, the idea of analyzing inter-document links was based on the observation of a characteristic of the scientific literature and the modes of organization of the Science Citation Index (SCI), which consists in assigning a value to a scientific publication in proportion to the number of publications that cite it.

This principle comes back to the work of Jon Kleinberg who had developed for IBM the HITS algorithm (Hyperlink –Induced Topic Search) which took into consideration the authority of a page according to the number of links pointing to it. It is therefore inspired by the work of Jon Kleinberg that the two students develop the algorithm for ranking web pages called Pagerank. This algorithm takes into consideration links pointing to a page as a vote for that page. The more votes a page received, the more relevant it would be considered and the more valuable the vote on that page, when it it pointed to other pages itself.

They name their project BackRub. They imagined software that would analyze the relationships between websites in order to offer better results than those given by their competitors at the time, AltaVista in particular.

Once their work is completed, the two students begin to realize their search engine project and buy for this purpose a terabyte of used hard drives, in order to create a database. This sketchy installation took place in Larry Page’s room. Sergey rents an office and starts looking for funding. David Filo, founder of Yahoo!, agrees with the value of their searches, but encourages them to create their own search engine rather than sell their work.

Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, is convinced by Sergei and Larry and writes them a check for $100,000 to finance their engine. However, the Company Google is not yet created and Larry keeps the check in his drawer for a few weeks, the time to complete the legal formalities. The domain name “google.com” was registered on September 15, 1997. At the same time, the two entrepreneurs solicited family and friends and finally managed to raise a million dollars to found the company. Google Inc. moved into the Google garage in Menlo Park, rented by a friend, in September 1998. The company employed three people: Sergei, Larry and Craig Silverstein, who is now the director of Google Technology.

Early technologies

While the engine is still in beta, it responds to nearly 10,000 queries per day. In December 1998, PC Magazine ranked Google in its list of the hundred best sites in the world. In February 1999, the company had to manage 500,000 daily queries. Becoming too big for the “Google garage”, Google moved to an office on Palo Alto University Avenue in March and eight people now work there. In August 1999, the three million daily searches mark was crossed.

In January 1999, the world press began to report on the performance of this new search engine. The French newspaper Le Monde writes that Google’s technological choice “proves to be very effective in use”. Thus, a search with the words “Bill Clinton” first refers to the White House site, while AltaVista only brings up the site after dozens of other references. Another advantage is that Google displays keywords in bold in the context of a sentence for each link, whereas Altavista only provides the links themselves at the time.

On June 7, 1999, the corporation obtained $25,000,000 in equity from venture capital firms. Omid Kordestani is leaving Netscape to join Google as Vice Chief Sales Officer. Michael Moritz and John Doerr, who had contributed to the rise of Sun Microsystems, Intuit, Amazon.com and Yahoo!, sit around the ping-pong table — which serves as the executive office — with Ram Shriram. The company moves a second time to its final location, the Googleplex, located in Mountain View, California. The search engine, previously in beta, completes its testing phase on September 9. Google then manages three million searches per day.

On 9 May 2000, the search engine was made available in ten new languages: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish, allowing the company to enter new markets and gain importance. Just one month later, in June 2000, Google was the first search engine to reference one billion web pages. The company sought to expand the reach of its engine by focusing its efforts on Asia, with the Chinese, Japanese and Korean versions (September 12, 2000), and then to the world, totaling twenty-six languages by March 27, 2001.

At the end of October 2000, the company signed a partnership with Yahoo! and began offering keyword-based advertising. The year 2000 ended with the publication of the Google Toolbar, which has since been offered as a free download, and sees the daily traffic of the site exceed 100 million requests, which represents more than 1,000 requests / second on average. Through its success and exponential growth, the company became a global press phenomenon.

In March 2001, Larry Page and Sergei Brin called on Eric Schmidt, the president of the software publisher Novell, to take over the management of the company, initially as president, then CEO from August 6, 2001, five days after the opening of the first overseas office, located in Tokyo. . The year 2001 thus ends with a physical conquest of the world and the announcement of the 3 billionth indexed page. On September 4, 2001, Google obtained the validation of its patent concerning PageRank.

The search engine continues its growth, in 2003, Google has three hundred million queries per day. It is available in more than one hundred languages in 2004 and one hundred and fifty in 2010. In 2010, Google is the leading search engine on the Internet, which 80% of American Internet users use compared to only 35% of Chinese, who prefer the Chinese tool Baidu. In Europe, its market share would be 93%.

On August 12, 2011, the site announced an update of its algorithm called “Panda” in all versions of the site (except the Chinese, Japanese and Korean versions) in order to lower the visibility of sites without added value such as price comparators or content aggregators (so much so that some leading merchant sites are now victims of “Google penalty”). In addition to Motorola Mobility, Google bought about 2,000 patents from IBM in 2011 to prevent further attacks by Apple and Microsoft on Android.

In 2012, Google indexed more than 30 trillion documents and handles roughly 3.5 billion search queries daily.

Product diversification of Google

Google, like Amazon, Apple and Facebook, since its founding, has bought many companies to fuel its growth, expand its user base and develop new technologies. Acquisitions include Picasa, Android, YouTube, DoubleClick and Waze.

Growth and diversification

It is from 2002 that the company diversifies its activity, based until then on its search engine. This year, Google is offering businesses the GB-1001 Google Search Appliance, a solution that allows them to “connect to their computer network in order to benefit from search functions on their own documents”. Google would not reveal the name of its manufacturing partner for the hardware devices, which it described as based on Intel components running Linux. This product could be installed in a rack of servers, storing an index of 150,000 documents (10GB) at a price of $20,000. It was declined in another model, the GB-8008, more efficient, but more expensive ($ 250,000).

The Google Labs feature is also an important new feature this year. It allows curious users to test services and products that are not finalized, but whose release in public is approaching. In addition, AdWords is priced at the number of clicks (February 20, 2002). In September, the Google News online service is available and allows you to display web pages related to the news according to the user’s keywords. This service is based on more than 4,000 sources. A month later, a new office opened in Sydney, Australia, when the company’s total workforce exceeded 1,600 employees. As a result, the company inaugurates its new Googleplex, an architecturally organized campus-like complex at 1600 Amphitheater Parkway in Mountain View, where 800 people work.

On January 22, 2004, the company tried its hand at the world of social networks by developing its own social networking site: Orkut. However, this project is not as successful as expected, except in Brazil and India. For the sake of communication, Google puts online its own official blog to publish the news of the company, its products and technologies. On April 29, 2004, the company filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public.

This application will culminate on August 18, 2004, in its listing on the NASDAQ and the sale of 19,605,052 shares, at a price of $85 per share. The company is carrying out an IPO in the form of reverse auctions, a method unprecedented in the history of stock exchanges. In eight years the share price will be multiplied by more than eight, with a peak in 2012 at more than 700 dollars. Meanwhile, Google carried out in August 2005, one year after its IPO, in order to have a total “safety blanket” of $ 7 billion in liquidity for its growth, one of the largest capital increases in stock market history, raising a total of $ 4.2 billion in the form of 14,159,265 new shares, let be the first eight decimal places of the number pi.

On April 1, 2004, Google offered Gmail, its own e-mail service with an initial capacity of 1 GB announced doubled for 2005. This capacity is totally unprecedented and strikes the competition, like MSN Hotmail, whose capacity was 500 times lower. This storage revolutionizes e-mail, which now eliminates the need to store messages on the computer through software, such as Outlook. Gmail is therefore ushering in the era of online email messaging. At its launch, however, registration required an invitation. Its success is reflected in a growing number of users, 176 million at the beginning of 2010.

Google offers an image viewer by acquisition in early July 2004 of Picasa. This software is coupled with an online account to store a 100 MB gallery. The service will have some success, but will have to fight against Yahoo!’s Flickr service launched earlier this year and will compete with Windows Live Photos in 2008. On October 6, 2004, Google set up its European center in Dublin, Ireland with a staff of 150 people. Three weeks later, we learn of the acquisition of Keyhole, a digital mapping company that will be the basis of Google Earth, without however publishing the software the same year, which ends with the launch of Google Desktop Search on October 14, Google Scholar four days later, and Google Print December 14 (renamed Google Book Search), when the search index displays eight billion web pages. To date, the company employed more than 3,000 employees.

In June 2019, the corporation signed the fourth largest acquisition in its history by getting its hands on Looker, an American company specializing in data analysis. The deal, funded in cash for $2.6 billion, aims to strengthen the Google Cloud division.

Virtual reality

At Google I/O 2014, the corporation presents the Google Cardboard, its first virtual reality headset made with cardboard.

In May 2015, the company unveiled the second version of its Google Cardboard which has the advantage of being much easier to assemble.

In October 2016, Google introduced a virtual reality headset, the Daydream View, only compatible with the Google Pixel.

Augmented reality

At Google I/O 2014, Google announced Project Tango, an augmented reality content creation platform. It is abandoned at the end of 2017 and gives way to ARCore which becomes more accessible.

Google launches in 2020, a new feature from augmented reality: Art Filters. The goal is to provide users with filters to transform a portrait into a “work of art”. These make it possible to integrate a face within different paintings.

Growing reputation

On February 8, 2005, the company entered the world of digital mapping by launching one of its most popular products online: Google Maps. This service is free, but still limited to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. On Thursday 27 April 2006, it covers France, Germany, Spain and Italy, and thereafter the available regions expand. Less than two months later, the very popular functions of route calculation and satellite views are integrated into it.

This service will later be used for the geolocation of mobile phones and GPS. On April 20, Google introduces in the Labs a feature of display and search in the history and statistics of search engine usage. On May 19, the company invites users of its search engine to customize their homepages through iGoogle. In addition, on June 28, the concept of Google Maps is taken up for the Google Earth software which integrates some improvements, including the topography in relief, some buildings in 3d, then the underwater view. Google Maps retains its simplicity since major innovations are reserved for cross-platform software.

3 years ago, Google had launched its own free online translation tool. It will be a huge success, both for Internet users and students and will once again contribute to the reputation of the company. The same week, the company announced the release of its own Instant Messaging Google Talk. This software is based on the open XMPP protocol and allows Voice over IP. It will subsequently offer the possibility of video chat and online use without previously downloaded software. However, despite these innovations, failure will loom since it is unable to compete with Skype and Windows Live Messenger. It’s the turn of Google Reader to see the light of day in early October, Google Analytics on November 14, then the adaptation to telephony of its Gmail service the next day.

Cloud Computing for Users

On January 20, 2006, Google attacked the Chinese market, which represented more than 110 million Internet users, with a sharp upward trend for the coming years with the democratization of Internet access. The company also deplores in this country ” a service that, to be frank, is not very good”. Meanwhile, Google is making one of the biggest buyouts ever, acquiring online video-sharing platform YouTube for $1.65 billion in company stock.

On March 9, we learn of the acquisition of the company Writely offering an online word processing editor, acquired for $ 8 million, with the intention of using it as a basis for the Google Docs project using the same concept, which will be announced six months later. At the end of March, Google Finance came out of Google’s boxes. It is a tool for tracking online prices and currencies. Google Calendar, a free online calendar is announced on April 13. These services were subsequently intended for professionals by Google Apps on August 28, 2006. When it was even released, these services were aggressively competing with other services that were already well established.

Empire Google

On August 30, 2006, Google Books launched a service for online reading and downloading of literary works in the public domain and fueled many controversies. The company began 2007 with 10,674 employees. In May, Google allows any internet user to study the traffic, searches and statistics of its search engine through Trends. A few days later, a major update of Google Maps allows you to virtually navigate the streets of certain cities through omnidirectional photos.

This is Street View. Being able to look at what is happening in people’s homes or to see by chance anyone on the street also causes controversy over privacy. The month of May ends with the launch of Google Gears. The second half of 2007 is characterized by the improvement and adaptation of existing services to other languages. Last highlight, the announcement on November 5 of an OS for mobile phones; Android, which will compete with Symbian OS and Windows Mobile. This event is part of the market search in mobile telephony which offers more and more possibilities for browsing the Internet. There were 16,805 employees in the company at the end of the year.

The Google Apps project was completed on February 28, 2008 by the introduction of Google Sites, which allows any Google user to easily create their own website in a domain provided by Google. It’s an inexpensive alternative — the standard version of Google Apps being free — compared to commercial products like Microsoft’s SharePoint. In May, according to principles similar to those of Wikipedia, Google announced its Knol project. During the following months, no noticeable release occurred, but Google’s teams worked on the products already launched.

Indeed, the company is looking to make several of its tools more accessible including Google Translate, Google Finance and Street View. Some adaptations are also announced, such as support for Unicode 5.1 and the adoption of IPv6. The effort to internationalize software and services continues with a goal of translation into 40 languages for an estimated 98% of Internet users. This relatively low activity favors the preparation of the release of its own web browser, Google Chrome which is formalized on September 1, 2008, by a comic stripe, which creates a buzz, because of the context and the notoriety acquired by the American company. The browser will experience significant growth since it will reach 6% of the market share two years later. Several versions and updates will follow.

On May 27, 2009, Google announced its intention to develop Google Wave, a product advertised as revolutionary. It is a web application whose concept mixes the notions of email services, instant messaging, wiki and social networking, all associated with a spell checker and an instant translator. A first phase of beta testing for September 30, 2009, with the distribution of 100,000 accounts to people who have registered on their site with the desire to report bugs.

On July 7, 2009, Google announced plans to develop Chrome OS, an open-source Linux-based operating system. This OS is intended to be lightweight and suitable for booming netbooks.

In November 2009, Google Music indexed music on the search engine in the United States to get started. To ensure its energy autonomy and reduce its electricity bills, Google announced in December 2009 its intention to found Google Energy. To this end, in January 2010 Google asked to be able to benefit from an industrial status.

After long rumors and some announcements, on January 5, 2010, Google officially presented its phone at a press conference at its headquarters in Mountain View. This Google phone is produced by HTC. This action is once again part of the ambition to conquer the nomadic Internet. This choice is confirmed by the strong rumors of the launch of a netbook running Chrome OS signed by the Californian giant.

On February 11, Google launched a call for tenders to provide the implementation of a 1 Gbit/s fiber optic network for 50,000 people, or even many more. While this announcement suggests that Google wanted to become an ISP, the company tempered its ambition by saying that it was more of a test than anything else. A month later, more than 1,100 U.S. cities, mostly on the East Coast, applied, supported by more than 200,000 individual applications.

In order to create a competitor of Facebook, Google Me, during the summer of 2010, the Mountain View company embarked on several financial operations aimed at the acquisition of six companies whose activity would allow it to achieve this goal. Slide (between $182 million and $228 million), Jambool, Angstro, Zynga (purchased between $100 million and $200 million), Like.com ($100 million) and SocialDeck were purchased. On June 28, 2011, Google launched its Google+ social networking service with the aim of competing with Facebook.

But in October 2011, Google announced the closure of several services for January 2012. These are Buzz (a social network launched in 2010), Jaiku (a social network purchased in 2007), Code Search (an open source code search tool on the web), the social functions integrated into iGoogle and The University Research Program for Google Search (a program that offered APIs to access search results to academic researchers).

In 2011, the company reached one billion unique visitors per month. On August 15, 2011, Google announced its intention to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

The year 2013 shows Google’s desire to develop in the robotics sector, with the acquisition of 8 companies in the field, including Boston Dynamics, renowned for its collaboration with the Pentagon and for its robots capable of running in rough terrain. Google’s Robotics department is headed by Andy Rubin, former head of Android OS development. According to John Markoff, these acquisitions would be the beginnings of the construction of autonomous systems capable of doing everything: help with household chores, home delivery or care for the elderly.

In January 2014, Google acquired Nest Labs, an American company specializing in home automation, for $ 3.2 billion. In January 2014, Google announced the acquisition of DeepMind for $ 400 million, a London startup specializing in artificial intelligence. At the same time on January 29, 2014, Google announced the sale of Motorola smartphones to the Chinese group Lenovo. At the same time, following a document from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Google took a 5.94% stake in Lenovo on January 30, 2014.

On February 19, 2014, Google formalized a $40 million investment in Renaissance Learning, a startup specializing in software and cloud services in the field of education.

On March 12, 2014, Google confirmed the acquisition of Green Throttle Games, a startup specializing in video games.

In June 2014, Google launched a new domain name registration service.

Confirming its interest in new technologies, Google invested in October 2014 $ 542 million in Magic Leap, a young company specializing in human-machine interactions.

On April 23, 2015, Google entered the mobile phone market in the United States by launching Project Fi. It becomes a virtual operator by renting the network of its partners T-Mobile and Sprint. For now, only Nexus 6 phone owners can take advantage of this offer.

Google becomes Alphabet

In August 2015, Larry Page, former director of Google, announced a major reorganization of the company. Indeed, the company Google becomes a subsidiary of the new Alphabet group. The entity named Google is thus removed all activities that do not concern the Internet or computing and that become subsidiaries in their own right of Alphabet. These subsidiaries are:

• Nest (home automation and connected objects);
• Life Sciences (health and fight against aging);
• Fiber (Internet service provider);
• X (long-term multi-project laboratory)
• Capital (finance);
• Ventures (investments).

However, Google, which is now led by Sundar Pichai keeps, without any modification, the other brands better known to the general public, such as the Google search engine, YouTube, Android, Google Play, Google Books, AdSense.

For users, this restructuring changes absolutely nothing, at least in the short term. Indeed, the restructuring and creation of Alphabet make it possible above all to improve the transparency of the company, and to separate the activities that do not bring in money (Calico, Google X) from the Internet branch, which alone gathers almost all the profits.

On August 17, 2015, Google presented its “Sunroof” service, based on Google Maps, which makes it possible to determine which roofs are suitable for the installation of solar panels. At that time, the experiments were limited to the American regions of Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area and Fresno.

On April 28, 2016, Google filed a patent on an electronic contact lens to improve eyesight. This would be grafted directly to the patient to replace the natural lens of the eye. Thanks to its sensors, it adapts the vision according to the ambient light to allow you to see from near and far.

In May 2016, Google jointly announced with Facebook plans to create a high-speed transatlantic submarine cable to accelerate the speed of access to their services and the cloud. The project called MAREA is expected to connect the cities of Virginia Beach in the United States to Bilbao in Spain.

On September 16, 2016, Google launched Trips, a new application that allows you to organize your trips and, once there, access all the necessary information, even without a connection.

In November 2016, Google introduced a new Cloud Jobs API application allowing employers and job seekers to find jobs by searching for them by keywords. Google is not new to the digital job market, since the creation of Adwords in 2000, job aggregators can pay money for their site to appear first in the search engine for certain keywords (HR, developer for example).

In 2017, Google paid Apple $3 billion to remain the default search engine on iOS devices up from $3 billion three years earlier.

Also, in 2017, HTC sold part of its business including its pixel phones and some of its licenses and rights to Google for $ 1.1 billion.

In December 2018, Google launched its mobile payment system with a partner bank in France. Google Pay is available to Android users.

In May 2019, the company relaunched Google Glass with the Enterprise Edition 2 model. Google Glass leaves Lab X to join the range of products sold directly by Google.

On December 4, 2019, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google and by extension Alphabet, announced their departure from the management of the company. Thus, Sundar Pichai becomes the CEO of Google in addition to Alphabet.

In August 2020, the company created the “Android Earthquake Alerts System“, a device for the brand’s smartphones to detect and signal the first signs of seismic activity preceding an earthquake. It is based on the “Shake Alert” system developed by the American Institute of Geological Studies.

In 2022, Google is multiplying acquisitions of start-ups specializing in cybersecurity such as Mandiant (March 2022) or Siemplify (January 2022). During the same period, Google also continues to invest heavily in Cloud, for example by acquiring MobiledgeX.

Establishment of Google in China

In 2006, Google agreed to restrict its search engine in order to establish itself in China. The Chinese government has, in fact, imposed certain conditions for entry into the Internet market, including censorship. The co-founders will explain that “In order to work from China, we have removed some content from the results of research obtained on Google.cn, in application of local laws and regulations.”

Thus, from January 25, 2006, an image search on “Tiananmen” displays, in Google.fr, the famous photo of the student blocking the road to the tanks, symbol of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, while, on Google.cn, the results display portraits of happy families or photos of monuments. This action has caused a lot of ink to flow in the global media.

However, on January 12, 2010, a massive and “highly sophisticated” double hacker attack from China called “Operation Aurora” targeted more than 20 companies including Adobe, Google and Intel. This operation allowed its perpetrators to steal trade secrets and copy emails from thousands of Chinese exiles and human rights activists. These attacks, despite the respect and enforcement of the conditions imposed by the Chinese government, will provoke the fury of the Californian company, which will threaten to no longer apply any censorship by acknowledging that this decision could force it to leave the country, but directly withdraw its services from China. 2010 is the year Google is censored in China (except Hong Kong).

This announcement was perceived by some forums as a bluff, since the Internet market is very buoyant (384 million Internet users at the end of 2009) and Microsoft has announced its intention to continue its activities with Bing despite everything. To pay tribute and affirm their support for such decisions, many Chinese placed flowers, candles and words of support on the building bearing the company’s logo. These actions became high-profile phenomena and the case took the form of a diplomatic incident between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

The three main dominant search engines in China in 2016 are:

Search engine	Market use (%)
Baidu	54.3
Qihoo360	29.2
Sogou	14.7

Places and activity centers of Google

Google has infrastructure and offices all over the world, although they are more numerous in Europe, the United States, India and coastal China. The main place where Google’s development takes place is the Googleplex located in California. The Googleplex consists of four main buildings, totaling 47,038 m2 on a plot of 11 hectares. The Googleplex is also home to the development site of the operating system for smartphones and mobile devices, called Android.

• Google has a complex in New York for searching for new services.
• Google is also based in Europe with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. In March 2008, the company created a new complex in Zurich, Switzerland, for its development in Europe.
• Several buildings are located in the Middle East and Middle East: in Israel, Dubai and Qatar.
• In South Africa are present the premises of Google for its development in Africa.
• The Australian site based in Sydney was the birthplace of Google Maps. Google Wave was also developed there.
• In 2007, Google created a server complex in Mons, Belgium, in the industrial zone of Ghlin-Baudour. A diversion of the Nimy-Blaton Canal for cooling as well as a railway line are planned.
• On the occasion of a visit to France, Eric Schmidt announced on 9 September 2010 the creation of a research and development centre in Paris.
• 6 December 2011: a 10,000 m2 complex is installed in Paris in the 9th arrondissement (Quarter Europe). 100 million euros have been invested in the project.

In this complex, 350 employees work under the orders of Jean-Marc Tassetto. At the opening of this center, Eric Schmidt said: “France is one of the most important centers of culture, business and technology in the world. The country has quickly adopted the Internet and the French are increasingly loving Google. So we wanted to get more involved and I am pleased that the investment plan launched in September 2010 is now giving rise to concrete achievements, such as the Cultural Institute and the R&D Center.

On 1 February 2013, under the terms of an agreement concluded with French press publishers, the company committed to finance a fund to the tune of 60 million euros to help “the transition of the press to the digital world”. In March 2013, Nick Leeder, a French-speaking Australian trained in particular at INSEAD, succeeded Jean-Marc Tassetto, who had resigned.

Following the Ukrainian conflict, Google’s Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy on May 18, 2022 and ceased operations in Russia. The bankruptcy filing follows the seizure of Google’s bank account by the Russian authorities which prevents any operation of Google’s subsidiary in Russia. The turnover of the Russian subsidiary amounted to 134.3 billion rubles (1.98 billion euros) in 2021.

Technology and Intellectual Property of Google

PageRank

The Google search engine is mainly based on the exploitation of PageRank technology. The first patent (US 6,285,999 B1, entitled “Method for Node Ranking in a Linked Database”), filed in January 1997 and registered on January 9, 1998, is the property of Stanford University. The text of the patent is available on the website of the U.S. Patent Office, which licensed the technology to Google in 1998 (amended in 2000 and 2003), two months after its founding. This is an exclusive license until 2011, with exclusivity ending on that date.

The research that led to the development of PageRank technology was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (Grant NSF – IRI-9411306-4). It is therefore specified in the patent that the government has certain rights to this invention.

Open Source

Google exists in large part thanks to the free software on which it was built from the beginning, such as Linux, MySQL and Python, which it helped to improve in return. Google employs Andrew Morton, a very important contributor to the Linux kernel and contributed to the MySQL code. Free software allows Google to spot talented programmers who can not only imagine technical solutions, but also implement them. To attract them, Google has created a work environment where innovation, technical ideas and participation in open-source projects are encouraged. Thus, each developer has 20% free time to work on a project of his choice, whether it is free or not.

From 2004 to 2014, Google supported the Mozilla Foundation through a partnership, because Mozilla’s mission – “to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet” – serves Google’s interests. Google is the default search engine for the Mozilla Firefox search bar in Europe. European internet users using Firefox search on Google and click on AdSense ads. The revenue that Google derives from it is then shared with Mozilla, which allows them to have the financial means to improve the standards of the Web and the software they publish (including Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird), which pushes other web browser publishers to do the same. Ultimately, it is the Internet as a whole that benefits from these improvements and Google (or others) can then use these new possibilities in its products thanks to its rapid cycle of innovation.

Google participates in and supports open source:

• The Google Open Source site lists all of Google’s Open Source projects.
• Google Summer of Code helps nurture free software communities by bringing students to free software, so that they can contribute fresh ideas and code and perhaps become new regular contributors to these projects.
• Google Code Hosting offers hosting to free software projects
• 16 million lines of code released under open source license in more than 500 projects
• Many open-source projects have been created, the best known of which are:
  • Chromium, open source base of the Google Chrome web browser
  • Android, operating system for mobile devices
  • Google Web Toolkit, a software library for programming AJAX applications in Java
  • Go, a language for system programming

Proprietary software

• Google also publishes proprietary software, such as Picasa or Google Drawings.
• In November 2019, Google launched its WordPress SiteKit plugin.
• In June 2020, Google launched a new social network called Keen; it will be available on Android and the Internet and will allow members to share their passions.

Google finance

Origin of income

Google derives the majority of its revenue from advertising with different mechanisms.

With the Ads system (formerly AdWords), literally word-related advertising, Google sells keywords at auction. If a person searches with this word, the links from the sites of those who participated in the auction are part of the commercial links in an order determined by Google’s algorithm. Each time someone selects one of these links, the relevant advertiser must pay a certain amount to Google. This is called cost per click.

The AdSense for search system allows a website to host a search engine offering Google technology and by extension AdWords ads based on keywords on its web pages. Google donates part of its earnings, again at cost per click, to this website, sharing being 51% for the publisher and 49% for Google. Similarly, the AdSense for Content system allows a publisher to display Google’s advertising inserts on its website, whether viewed on desktop or mobile, the revenue generated is distributed up to 68% for the publisher and 32% for Google.

Gmail features a contextual advertising display in the email read window, with Google’s pay always being at cost-per-click24. YouTube also has ads. Google’s Display Network allows an advertiser to precisely target the delivery modes and content sites of their advertising campaign; the Internet user consults a search engine and therefore advertising only 5% of his time, Google optimizes the advertising distribution channels.

Apart from advertising activities, Google has other sources of revenue. For online storage space, Google offers a free storage space to its users to save documents on Google servers, and access them from any computer. When a user reaches the allowed disk space limit per user, they can purchase additional disk space.

Google Apps offers a collaboration solution, which brings together several office and production tools. A free version is available, but organizations/companies wishing to use all the features of this solution must pay monthly for additional services.

Google Play Store is an online store for selling music, books, Android apps and Google Nexus devices, tablets and smartphones.

Financial data

Google is one of the startups that made it through the NASDAQ crash in 2001, especially because it was not listed. The company went public through a little-used auction system in May 2004 that squeezed commissions received by investment banks from 5.5% to 1.5 percent; introduced at $80, the stock was trading at $250 a year later, valuing the company at nearly $74 billion. In early 2006, the stock cost $460$environ, crossed the $600 ($609.62) mark on October 8, 2007, and then the $700 mark on October 31, 2007, placing it fourth in terms of capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange. With the various financial crises of late 2007 and early 2008 on the financial markets and the announcement of a probable takeover of Yahoo! by Microsoft, Google shares fell from $712 at the end of 2007 to $609 in February 2008.

The stock code on NASDAQ is GOOG. On April 2, 2014, the course is divided between GOOG and GOOGL, the first grouping class A titles and the second class C. The Class B shares are all held by the founders, Larry Page and Serguey Brin, which strengthens their control over the management of the company.

On December 20, 2005, Time Warner announced that Google would take a 5% stake in its subsidiary AOL.

Tax Strategy

In order to avoid paying the taxes to which most American and European companies are subject, Google uses the so-called “tax optimization” technique. The Brand’s Europe, Middle East and Africa licenses are operated by a company domiciled in Bermuda. And “to escape the US Treasury, which taxes up to 35% of the profits of companies repatriated from abroad, the multinational lets them sleep in the Bahamas”.

According to Bloomberg, Google saved $3.1 billion in income taxes in 2007 and 2009. In 2009, Google reportedly managed to lower its tax rate to 2.4% on its non-US activities, thanks to its Irish subsidiary through which 88% of its international activities pass. The corporate income tax rate in Ireland is 12.5% compared to an average of 25% in other countries where Google generates most of its turnover.

But Google also sought to reduce the amount of taxable profits of its Irish subsidiary by requiring it to pay royalties to a Dutch subsidiary, a sine qua non-condition for Ireland to grant the tax exemption to Google Ireland Holdings, the sister company of Google Ireland Limited, the operating subsidiary. Google Ireland Holdings transfers its royalties to the Dutch subsidiary, which then transfers them to Bermuda. This strategy has enabled the company to accumulate more than $39 billion in cash.

The legal vehicle used by Google in Bermuda, Google Bermuda Unlimited was adopted in 2006 and allows it to escape the taxation of the countries where the sales are made, but also the obligation to publish its accounts.

According to Paul Tang, economist and member of the delegation of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) within the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D), Alphabet, google’s parent company, was taxed only 0.36 to 0.82% of its turnover between 2013 and 2015 within the EU zone. , while Alphabet is taxed from 6.49% to 8.79% outside the EU. Thus, within the European Union, losses amounted to €3,955 million between 2013 and 2015.

If a tax rate of 2 to 5% had been applied between 2013 and 2015 as suggested by the ECOFIN Council, the losses in the event of tax evasion vis-à-vis this (virtual) rate would have been between €1,262 million and €3,155 million in the EU.

Suspicions of tax evasion in France

On December 18, 2013, a study conducted by VRDCI showed that Google’s income in France would be higher than its returns. Between November 2012 and November 2013, Google reportedly made €1.43 billion in France, a figure far from the €193 million reported by the company in France (in fiscal year 2012).

At the end of an investigation that began in 2011, the French tax authorities in February 2014 decided to impose a tax adjustment of nearly a billion euros on Google for evading tax. During this investigation (codenamed “Tulipe”), the members of the prosecutor’s office worked for a year offline, to guarantee maximum confidentiality around the backr.

In 2017, the Paris Administrative Court annulled this tax adjustment, which concerns the period from 2005 to 2010, on the grounds that Google did not have a permanent establishment in France. The tax administration having appealed, the justice agrees with Google and confirms in April 2019 the cancellation of this tax adjustment of 1.15 billion euros.

According to Paul Tang’s report, in France, for 55 million users in 2015 (representing 14% of the internet flow in Europe) losses due to tax evasion amounted to 544 million euros between 2013 and 2015.

In 2019, Google decided to pay 965 million euros to France to close the file of the national financial prosecutor’s office.

Data collected

The various Google tools collect data that is used to improve the efficiency of Google services, such as Google Ads. These Google tools share the same privacy policy, to which each service redirects. The large amount of services offered by Google led Google to merge on 1 March 2012 the 70 privacy documents and the 60 existing rules presenting the processing of data collected by the different services.

The centralization of the management of data collected in services such as Analytics or Android through a Google account is justified by an objective of cross-referencing this data to provide by a more personalized service but also more targeted advertising, which has raised concerns about privacy. Some services such as Google Wallet or Google Chrome software will nevertheless keep specific rules due to particular regulatory constraints.

Apps, browsers, and devices of Google

The data collected for a person varies depending on whether they have a Google Account or not.

Use without a Google Account

The use of Google services without an account gives rise to the collection of information. These include the unique identifier associated with the browser, application or device (laptop, phone, tablet, etc.), preferences (language, acceptance of advertisements, personalization of searches), the operating system and its version. They include exchanges with other people through Google services (email, photos, recorded videos, online documents, Youtube comments, etc.).

Use with a Google Account

A Google Account is associated with several pieces of information, required, name and password, or optional, such as a phone number and payment information.

Activity

The activity on the different services is collected, the stated objective is to adapt the result of the pages to each person.

Among the activity on Google services, the information collected includes:

• Keywords searched, including keywords entered on search engines, whether Google, or searches on YouTube, Google Maps, Google Books, Google News, Google Home, etc., regardless of the device used;
• Videos watched, on YouTube but also on pages that offer YouTube videos;
• Interactions with ads, including mouse movements over ads without requiring a click, and in the pages that contain them;
• Audio and voice information captured, such as sounds recorded by Google Home, mobile phone, and tablet voice assistants; this includes recordings over a certain time interval before they are activated audio (to identify an activation);
• Activities around purchasing;
• Persons with whom exchanges or sharing of content take place;
• Activity on third-party sites and apps that use Google services, such as apps using a developer library like Google Firebase, sites using Google Analytics for traffic analysis, or Google Ads to generate revenue from advertising, web beacons integrated into visited pages or emails, Chrome browser cache or Android apps, etc.;
• Chrome browsing history synced with a Google Account;
• Metadata of calls and messages made by Google services such as the phone number calling and calling, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls or messages, duration of calls, routing data, type and volume of calls and messages;

In the event that a Google account is used, it is possible to access and manage this information.

Geographical position

The position can be collected by the sensors of a portable device such as a mobile phone or tablet, these sensors include GPS, accelerometers, and gyroscopes.

This position can be inferred from the IP address of the device, but also from searches and places where a label is added, such as where you live or where you work.

Finally, it can be obtained by devices that pass close to the device, such as Wi-Fi terminals, cell towers and Bluetooth-connected devices.

Information Collected from Third Parties

Publicly accessible information on the Internet may be collected for use in tools such as Google translate, or the indexing of the Google search engine.

Information may also be collected from partners such as directory services that provide commercial information that can be displayed on Google Maps, marketing services for prospecting potential customers of professional services, or information to verify the veracity of certain people who use Google services.

Communication

Visual identity of Google

Google’s logo is very simple and comes from its search engine. It consists of the Word Google written in Catull font, whose letters are colored in the following order: blue-red-yellow-blue-green-red. This composition has not changed since 1999, except for the mention “beta” and the exclamation mark that have disappeared. It was created by Ruth Kedar, who was teaching design at Stanford University at the time when the founders of the search engine, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were studying. This architecture of color and shape is found on several products, including Gmail.

If the company’s logo does not change, the logo of its search engine is regularly replaced for a day to mark or commemorate a particular event. These logos, present only on the home page, are then visually adapted to the theme of the day. These are the Google Doodles (“doodle” means a scribble in English and allows a paronomase with “Google”). It is possible to view the Google logo in ASCII art by searching for the same term in Google’s search engine.

Google kept its first logo long enough. The logo is known for its multicolored and embossed letters. From the end of September 2013, Google changed its logo slightly, for more modernization: the colors are paler and the letters are now two-dimensional.

The logo changed again in September 2015, to take a bolder and rounded font, while keeping the same colors for each letter.

Slogan

Until October 2015, Google’s slogan is Don’t be evil. In the spring of 2004, the phrase even appeared at the top of the letter addressed to investors, sometime before their IPO. Larry Page wrote that “By this phrase which is our motto, we have tried to define precisely what it means to be a beneficial force – always do the right, ethical thing.” This motto sums up quite well the supposed desire of Larry Page and Sergey Brin to make Google a company that works for a better world.

The company has sometimes been taken to task over its slogan, especially about filtering banning access to certain sites or pages containing certain words from China. In particular, google.cn shall ensure that the strings of characters which cause the user to disconnect from the automatic monitoring mechanisms to be ensured by access providers do not include on its response pages. She explained that, in her opinion, it was better for Chinese users to have an imperfect Google than no Google at all.

In October 2015, the slogan was replaced by Do the right thing.

In April 2018, Don’t be evil was completely removed from Alphabet’s Code of Conduct. Only one mention remains, the last sentence: “And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up! ».

Google discretion

Google is known for its discretion, even its silence with journalists. A documented example is that of Mark Jen, a new employee who arrived at Google on Monday, January 17, 2005. He then creates a blog, tracing his impressions of the company. But gradually, the tone of the blog becomes protesting, Mark Jen even going so far as to declare that “The benefits that Microsoft provides in terms of care ridicule those offered by Google.”On January 28, Mark Jen learned of his dismissal, because of his blog. This example illustrates the company’s desire for discretion, with journalists almost never being able to land an interview with the two founders, Page and Brin.

Environmental commitments

To be in line with its sustainable development policy, carpooling services are organized and travel between buildings is done by bike. The buildings are topped with several thousand solar collectors. For the same purpose, instead of using lawnmowers to clear brush around the Googleplex in firefighting measures, the company recruited 200 goats.

However, this display is undermined by the company’s reputation for being a very large consumer of energy, through its server clusters.

At the end of June 2011, Google injected $280 million into SolarCity, bringing its total investment in green energy to $680 million.

At the end of September 2011, Google partnered with Clean Power Finance and invested $75 million to install solar energy systems in private homes in order to democratize this energy among citizens.

In July 2016, Google installed DeepMind artificial intelligence on its servers to lower its cooling electricity bill by 40%.

The new form of work

Google intends to operate with a light and not very restrictive hierarchy. Autonomy and liberal supervision offer employees less stressful workstations. Schedules are established to establish the guidelines for collective work; However, Google encourages its employees to adhere to the 80-20 policy: a schedule consisting of 80% of work imposed by management and 20% of the time spent on autonomous projects without significant restrictions.

In addition, Google strives to create a motivating framework. Applying the principles of adhocratic organization, he leaves his employees free to manage the environment of their workstation and advocates teamwork. To do this, the company uses common schedules and internal wikis. Workplaces are also radically different from those of other companies: management offers its employees free use of many entertainment or wellness facilities. The Googleplex, the company’s headquarters, has restrooms, billiard rooms, sports fields, a swimming pool, a massage or hairdressing service. Employees are allowed to bring their dog, but not their cat, to the Googleplex.

This welfare policy aims to generate greater motivation and, as a result, increased productivity. At the same time, this extraordinary professional life should retain employees, thus ensuring the stability of the payroll. Indeed, from a sociological point of view, this form of work is based on a very strong integration of the latter within the company: this integration allows group values to take precedence over personal feelings and encourages employees to put the interests of the company before their own interests.

Criticisms and controversies about Google

Fears of abuse of a dominant position

As Google grows and becomes more and more important in the management of global information, many criticisms of the company are developing in parallel that some politicians (for example Jean-Noël Jeanneney) fear that it could abuse its position, in particular by collecting very private data from Internet users using its services, and by using them, or even praising the use, in an abusive manner. A growing number of computer tools have been developed by different groups of activists and activists to limit Google’s intrusive capabilities. This includes, for example, hiding AdWords ads.

These instruments include the Tor network (“The Onion Router”), which anonymizes Internet users (the result visible with Google is that advertisements are no longer targeted); the Scroogle software, a “Google Scraper” developed by activist Daniel Brandt that hijacks the search engine, provides it with a new IP address with each search, and accepts the installation of the cookie on its server before throwing it in the trash; or also the extension for Mozilla Firefox “Optimize Google” which allows to anonymize the Google cookie, prevents Google Analytics from collecting statistics on the user and also removes advertisements, like Adblock Plus (browser extension).

In addition, some sites campaigning for the protection of private information provide information on how Internet users can assert their right to demand that data concerning them be collected (they are by default, but there is an opt-out system).

The advertising agency Doubleclick was bought by Google in 2007 for $ 3.1 billion which induces a high concentration of the market in the hands of a single player, but despite protests the Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission have validated this acquisition.

In the first half of 2014, Google spent $9.5 million lobbying, more than almost any other company. According to Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Google funds a large number of think tanks focused on internet and telecommunications policy. This strategy has silenced criticism of the company in recent years. According to Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation, “Google is very aggressive by throwing its money around Washington and Brussels and then pulling the ropes […]

People are afraid of Google now.” According to Lynn, Google is trying to “censor journalists and researchers who fight against dangerous monopolies.” Following a publication praising the European Union’s sanctions against Google, Barry Lynn was fired from the New America Foundation and his publication was temporarily removed due to an “unintentional internal problem.” The New America Foundation is a Washington-based think tank that has received more than $21 million from Google. The New America Foundation is seen as a voice that matters within the American left.

In April 2015, the European Commission after investigation presented Google with a “statement of objections” on its dominant position. The commission accuses the search engine of highlighting its own services to the detriment of those of its competitors in search results including its price comparison Google Shopping and this “in violation of the rules of the European Union on cartels and abuse of dominant position” in the words of Margrethe Vestager , European Commissioner for Competition.

This would also present the user with results that would not be the most relevant. On the other hand, an investigation is also opened concerning facts of distortion of competition for its Android mobile operating system. The penalty incurred by Google would be a fine of up to 10% of its turnover, or about six billion dollars. In June 2017, Google was fined €2.42 billion by the European competition authorities for abuse of a dominant position via its Google Shopping price comparison tool.

According to former Mozilla executives, Google has sabotaged Firefox for years by introducing small bugs to favor the Google Chrome application.

On 9 April 2020, the French Competition Authority issued precautionary measures against Google, obliging it to negotiate the remuneration of online press publishers1.

In October 2020, in the United States, the Department of Justice through Attorney General William Barr as well as 11 states (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Commonwealth of Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina and Texas) filed a lawsuit against Google for abuse of a position of dominance.

In June 2021, the French Competition Authority in France, speaking of “very serious practices”, imposed a fine of €220 million on Google for abusing its dominant position and promoting its own solutions in the market for online advertising technologies (Adserver and RTB).

Information Control

Web giants hold a virtual monopoly on the flow of information and, as such, are able to manipulate public discourse. The Internet is a set of basic services. Most of these services are owned and operated by private companies, which host the content and give users the ability to view it or create new ones. If these basic service providers don’t want something on the Internet, they can censor it and make it disappear from the internet around the world. This control of the Internet is, in fact, concentrated in the hands of a few massive companies that do everything to make the public unaware of it.

According to columnist Tucker Carlson, “Google is in 2017 the most powerful company in the history of the world. Google controls reality and has already demonstrated a troubling willingness to distort that reality for ideological purposes.” Reacting to a revenue freeze thanks to the advertising content of hundreds of videos on Youtube, SkyNews writes “it’s bullying. The debate no longer exists.”

In April 2017, Google developed a new algorithm to make it more difficult to access sites propagating “conspiracy theories” and strengthen the place of the mainstream media. However, for its critics, the measure would amount to censorship of sites with different opinions, whose coverage and interpretation of events are contrary to those of the mainstream media. Some sites, such as WikiLeaks or sites critical of U.S. foreign policy, have seen a massive drop in visits.

Google prevents access to the Google Play Store for many companies, including Disconnect, which filed a complaint with the European Union, the AdBlock Plus apps in 2013 and AdBlock Fast in 2016 and in general Google systematically creates barriers for Android users to download other app stores from Google Play. In September 2017, the social network Gab.ai filed a lawsuit against Google, which it accuses of violating federal antitrust laws by banning the app from Google Play. On this occasion, Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab.ai, said “Google is the biggest threat to the free flow of information.”

Privacy and personal information on Google

The proliferation of services offered by Google is generating an increased demand for information about users: tracking navigation and storing keywords, scanning emails in Gmail, information delivered in forms, among others. This raises the question of respect for their privacy, as noted by philosopher and philologist Barbara Cassin in her book on Google. Google crosses this data to refine the profile of users, and improve the targeting of advertisements on the internet.

Such a concentration of information about individuals and its retention worries privacy organizations on the internet, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the European Commission’s “Article 29 Working Group”, a new and highly sophisticated form of surveillance and a danger to people’s freedom. Recently, Google was placed at the very bottom of the ranking developed by the NGO Privacy International, which says of Google that it is “enemy of respect for privacy because of the total surveillance of users“.

All this is all the more worrying since Google has signed a security contract with the NSA, secret services of the United States, suggesting the provision of user information to these services. Google is also attacked in Germany by the German equivalent of the CNIL, because its Google Car would collect all the information on Wi-Fi HotSpot and their MAC addresses on its way. On April 29, 2012, the New York Times revealed that this collection of personal data was neither accidental nor an error, but that officials had been warned.

The latter have not stopped the process. In 2004, Google, together with AOL, Amazon.com, CNet, eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo!, lobbied against the Spyware Control Act in Utah in the United States requiring explicit user consent to enable tracking options of their choices or before installing spyware. The reasons for their opposition, according to them, were technical and unethical: in the letter sent to Senator Valentine and Representative Urquhart, they acknowledge the very good intentions of the law.

Regarding the possible tracking techniques used by Google, Google Watch, the site of the American activist Daniel Brandt, tries to demonstrate the flaws and the lack of neutrality of Google and proposes a proxy, Scroogle, to submit a Google search without being spied on in any way. Among other things, he denounces his censorship in other countries such as the People’s Republic of China, or the United States, concerning the invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison.

In this regard, Google initially refused to comply with the US government’s injunctions at the end of 2006 by not giving it access to the search lists and URLs that were requested of it to contribute to a law on the repression of pedophilia. Nevertheless, they then handed over 50,000 URLs to the government, but the judge in charge of the case decided that Google did not have to hand over the lists of keywords requested by the government. In France, the guarantees of respect for privacy provided by the CNIL are not applicable to services whose servers are located outside the national territory. Google’s refusal to comply with local laws, therefore, creates a de facto extension of U.S. jurisdiction. This refusal earned him the French Big Brother Awards 2007.

In 2007, the head of the CNIL’s IT expertise department said: “Clearly, Google can control all the personal data of individuals. By exploiting these tools in a correlated way, Google could turn into a formidable surveillance company. […] Internet users should know that by using Google’s services, they give it the opportunity to monitor them.” Only Google has not reacted to the recommendation of the G29 (European Union), that is to say “to increase to a maximum of six months, against at least twelve months today, the period during which Internet search engines have the right to store or use personal data”.

In 2012, Google modified its privacy policy, and planned to store and cross-reference everything about its users: personal data such as name, address, telephone number, payment card number, technical data on connected devices and their settings, logs of consultation or use of Google tools.

In 2013, the search engine reported the number of its internet accounts monitored by the US government, as part of the Patriot Act, which seeks to prevent possible terrorist activities.

On January 8, 2014, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des libertés (CNIL) sanctioned Google with a fine of 150,000 euros, considering that the confidentiality rules implemented by the firm since March 1, 2012, do not comply with the Data Protection Act. in France. The financial penalty is accompanied by the obligation to publish a press release on the homepage of Google.fr for 48 hours.

On 13 March 2014, the European Court of Justice dismissed Google’s case in a “right to be forgotten” case . The European Court of Justice has ruled that the operator of a search engine is responsible for the personal data that appear on its pages and for their processing. Faced with pressure from the European Court of Justice, Google has been very reactive and on May 30, 2014 has set up a right to be forgotten form that allows the Internet user who wishes to have certain information about him deleted.

The result is at the rendezvous since in 24 hours, the Mountain View firm had already received 12,000 requests. In mid-July 2014, Google appointed an advisory committee of ten experts, which was tasked with drafting a report with recommendations to implement the “right to be forgotten” measure. It consists of Frank La Rue (UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression), Jose Lui Pinar (former Vice-President of the European Group of Data Protection Commissioners), Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (former German Minister of Justice), Peggy Valcke (lecturer-researcher at KU Leuven University), Luciano Floridi (professor at Oxford University), Sylvie Kauffmann (editorial director of Le Monde), Lidia Kolucka-Zuk (member of the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Easter Europe) and Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia).

In August 2014, a Gmail email user was reported to local authorities by Google following the sending of a child pornography photo as an email attachment. However, Google makes it clear in its terms of use: “Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) in order to offer you […] This analysis takes place during the sending, receiving and storage of content. This news item highlights the massive control of exchanges carried out by Google. This method also contradicts Article 29 of the CNIL which states that: “Access to personal data for security purposes is not acceptable in a democratic society as long as it is massive and unconditional. The retention, access and use of data by competent national authorities should be limited to what is strictly necessary and proportionate in a democratic society. They must be subject to substantial and effective safeguards.»

On January 21, 2019, in France, the CNIL sentenced Google to a fine of 50 million Euros “in application of the European regulation on the protection of personal data (GDPR) for lack of transparency, unsatisfactory information and lack of valid consent for the personalization of advertising”. The CNIL investigation, which lasted several months, was opened after collective complaints from the associations None Of Your Business and La Quadrature du Net. This is the first decision by a regulatory body to sanction one of the major digital players, using the provisions of the GDPR in force since May 2018. On June 19, 2020, the Council of State validated the penalty of 50 million euros pronounced by the CNIL against the company Google LLC.

In December 2020, the CNIL decided on a new fine, this time of 100 million euros, against Google. The latter considers that the company installs advertising cookies when users visit the site Google.fr, without prior consent and without sufficiently informing them. This conviction is reminiscent of that of 2014 for similar facts. The fine is at an all-time high in Europe for a case of this kind. In addition, the alleged acts are in contravention of the European Privacy Directive (Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications) of 2002 and not only with the GDPR of 2018, which authorizes the French CNIL to rule without having to go back to its Irish counterpart, which Google had chosen as a “one-stop shop” in Europe with competence to deal with this type instructions.

Google Latitude

Google Latitude is a service created in 2009 to determine the position of a person who has registered for this service through their mobile phone. As of 2009, this service is available in 27 countries.

This service is controversial: we can see in Latitude a tool to trace people, so privacy can be infringed, but Google replies that this tool was designed with another in mind: it allows, for example, to locate on Google Maps your children, friends or colleagues.

The service was discontinued on August 9, 2013.

Google Books

Google Books is a side project of Google much criticized at one time. It consists of systematically scanning as many books as possible. Critics are concerned about the impact that Google’s dominant position may have on the digitization of books in general, and Google’s treatment of copyright (either that international distribution of digitized versions would violate rights in some countries, or that Google’s position of strength would allow them to obtain rights concessions deemed abusive).

Sentences and convictions

• On February 21, 2008, Google was ordered to pay €150,000 for counterfeiting the documentary film The World According to Bush.
• The European Union has imposed several heavy fines on Google for abusive monopoly on other minority companies.
• Google’s video arm, YouTube, has been repeatedly fined up to $1.6 million for illegal broadcasting or copyright infringement.
• On 18 December 2009, Google was ordered to pay €300,000 in damages to Editions du Seuil, Delachaux and Niestlé and Harry N. Abrams, as well as a symbolic euro as damage to the Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE) and the Société des gens de lettres (SGDL) for having reproduced in full and by making accessible extracts from works without the authorization of the rights holders. The Paris High Court also prohibited Google from continuing to digitize books without the publishers’ permission.
• On September 8, 2010, Google was convicted in France for algorithm defamation for associating certain keywords with the terms “rape,” “convicted,” “Satanist,” “prison,” and “rapist.”
• On August 24, 2011, Google preferred to pay a $500 million fine to U.S. authorities, rather than be prosecuted for promoting illegal drugs.
• In June 2017, the European Union fined Google €2.4 billion for anti-competitive practices. This decision is confirmed in November 2021 by the EU court after an appeal by Google.
• In July 2018, the European Commission fined Google €4.3 billion for abuse of a dominant position.
• On February 12, 2019, the Paris Court of First Instance condemned Google for the illegal nature of its general conditions of use and its privacy rules. The search engine had been assigned six years earlier by the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir.
• On March 15, 2019, Google was once again threatened by the European Commission (the third in less than two years). The Commission accuses the American of having abused its dominant position in Internet searches in order to privilege its services, to the detriment of those of its rivals. On 20 March, the European Commission imposed a fine of €1.5 billion on the company. EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager explains that Google abused its dominant position between 2006 and 2016 by forcing customers of its advertising network AdSense to sign contracts stating that they would not accept advertising from competing search engines.
• In June 2021, the French Competition Authority imposed 220 million fines on Google for promoting its own services in the online advertising sector.
• Following the seizure of the competition authority in 2015 by Benjamin Jayet with his company Gibmedia, Google was sentenced in 2020 to pay a fine of 150 million euros. Following this first conviction, an appeal procedure was initiated by Google refusing this conviction. On April 7, 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the fine of 150 million euros and the conviction of Google whose rules imposed on advertisers were deemed “opaque and difficult to understand“.

Environmental impact

Google queries would have a significant environmental impact on greenhouse gas emissions. It has been mentioned in headlines in the Anglo-Saxon and French press (incorrectly quoting an article by Alex Wissner-Gross that makes no reference to Google) that the cost of a query would be 14 grams – which was not supported by the study. According to Google’s own calculations, these queries weigh only 0.2 g.

The company’s server farms are particularly reputed to have consumption, including cooling systems, representing several nuclear power plants.

However, this assertion is doubtful, since the smallest units of nuclear power plants with a capacity of 900 MW, it would be necessary, in order to achieve such a power, that each of the 900 000 Google servers requires a power of one kilowatt, which is unlikely because the usual power of a server is of the order of 100 W maximum and that of the cooling system, a fraction of the latter.

In October 2019, Google acknowledged having made “substantial contributions” to organizations that, according to The Guardian, “had campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action on global warming, or actively sought to reverse environmental protection initiatives” (American Conservative Union, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute), (Americans for Tax Reform, Cato Institute, Mercatus Center and Heritage Foundation).

Recruitment

The company is implicated in a case of wage cartel and agreement on the poaching of employees on a large scale, whose origin dates back to 2005 with unwritten agreements between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt.

In 2017, James Damore, a company executive, circulated an internal memo (Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber) of about ten pages warning his hierarchy against the counterproductive effects of the company’s policy on diversity and parity. male-female. In particular, he criticizes the company for organizing training courses reserved for “a gender or a race”, and for favoring candidates from diversity. According to him, Google has “a left bias” on issues of diversity and inclusion, which has “created a politically correct monoculture that perpetuates itself by humiliating and silencing those who do not comply.”

The note, described as “sexist” by many American media, and quickly became viral on social networks, caused a scandal. The engineer is licensed by Sundar Pichai on Monday, August 7, 2017. Google’s reaction to the memo and its firing of Damore was criticized by multiple cultural columnists, including Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail, Erick Erickson of RedState, David Brooks of the New York Times (who called on Sundar Pichai to resign) and Clive Crook of Bloomberg View.

Others object to the intensity of the response to the memo in the media and on the Internet, such as CNN’s Kirsten Powers, The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf, and Jesse Singal in the Boston Globe. Psychologist David C. Geary, known for the paradox of gender equality, says the controversy reflects hostility to open and peaceful debate about the link between biological differences in certain sectors, and that censorship of the debate will ensure there is no change.

Google and the job market

In November 2016, Google announced the launch of an alpha version of its new Google Cloud Jobs API, which connects employers and job seekers through deep learning algorithms and a massive database of job postings and resumes.

This is not the first time that the IT giant has taken on the job market. Indeed, in October 2000, Google launched the Adwords system allowing job aggregators to buy keywords so that job seekers are redirected to the sites of the aggregators in question.

Google was then until then, an intermediary between employers and job seekers, if the Cloud Jobs API is indeed, launched publicly, the Californian giant will directly connect the two parties. This system is, therefore, good news for people who are not satisfied with their work, because the API will allow you to directly send job offers via ads on browsers or on social networks. This could help, for example, frustrated workers who do not dare to quit to find a job in which they will be more fulfilled.

However, many controversies are raised by this initiative. Indeed, the role of public action in the regulation and shaping of the labor market is questioned. France, via Pole Emploi, has engaged in transparent approaches to the job market and the arrival of the Californian firm is not likely to help in this direction. In addition, entrusting the reins of the labor market to algorithms raises questions about the identity of job seekers.

References (sources)

Google facts » on the page Company of Google; Ivan Davchev, « Google Job Search API », 2017; Controversé et gênant : le manifeste antidiversité qui circulait à Google, lemonde.fr, 2017; « Concurrence: la Cour d’appel de Paris confirme l’amende de 150 millions d’euros infligée à Google », on LEFIGARO, 2022; « Cookies : la CNIL sanctionne Google et Amazon de 100 et 35 millions d’euros d’amendes », on Les Echos, 2020; Google, « Règles de confidentialité et conditions d’utilisation », 2022; Article, Wikipedia.