Yes, and Google then proceeded to turn them into two of the coolest products around. The idea isn't unique, it's the execution that matters. Google saw the potential in the startup, and then did what few else could - they turned that potential into a real, fleshed out, *awesome* product.

This one is simply false. Yes, Chrome uses WebKit, but that's only a piece of the puzzle. WebKit by itself doesn't actually do all that much. Chrome created their own, super simple UI (one of the things they get praised for - simplicity), created the innovative sandboxed multi-process architecture (something Apple then "stole" and put into WebKit2), contributed a ton of code to webkit (Google contributes more to WebKit than Apple does these days - even fixing Safari-only bugs), and, most importantly, created both their own HTTP stack and their own JavaScript engine - and that JS engine is what really put Chrome on the map.

Microsoft *should* be investing more than Google does in R&D - they make double the yearly revenue. To say, however, that Google has "let themselves go" is just ridiculous. Google's network, data centers, and cloud computing infrastructure is second to none. They created their own mass distributed file systems called GFS, they continue to lead the way on data center design, and thrived on the unique approach to using cheap, commodity parts and creating fault-tolerant software instead. They created MapReduce, which Hadoop is trying to re-implement as open source.

And in terms of "pure" R&D, their is the recently announced glasses project, the self driving car, and even the 1GB/s fiber connection they are testing in Kansas City.

Google innovates all the time, it's just most people can't see it or appreciate it because much of it has to do with the incredible scale that Google operates at.

No, they don't. Their users are very rarely their customers, by the way. Microsoft sells to OEMs, not to end users. And most telling of all is when they are on top, they get lazy as hell. Go look at IE6 for a shining example of that. Or Windows Mobile, which didn't really improve - at all. They released new versions that you couldn't upgrade to, and those new versions didn't really do anything new.

Horseshit. Google *never* sells your data. They have *never* sold it, and they *never* will. The fact that you think they do and/or will shows you know absolutely *nothing* about how Google makes its money. Your data is completely safe in Google's hands. They will do everything in their power to keep your data under lock and key, because that is a huge benefit to how they make money. Keeping that data secret between you and Google is how Google stays in business.

There's several aspects to this. 1) Google doesn't play nice with the government, which is what actually gets them in trouble. They do things like call out and have public statistics on all the govt data requests they get and the percentage that get denied ( http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/ ). Nobody else does this. 2) Being continuously investigated is how you know you're successful. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong or that you shouldn't be. 3) Companies that hate Google pay the govt a lot of money (RIAA/MPAA for example), and they aren't doing it expecting nothing in return.

That this comment got insightful mods shows just how poorly understood this whole mess is on slashdot (or perhaps that the prevailing wisdom is that "Google is evil"?).

First, blocking third party cookies is the browser's job. The site has *zero* way of knowing what that setting is. Google literally cannot respect that setting by itself, they don't have that information.

Second, the issue isn't remotely what you think it was, nor is it an "exploit" at all. Go read the actual webkit bug: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35824 Google didn't bypass anything - webkit has a special case for if you already had a cookie from the 3rd party, it would enable 3rd party cookies under the assumption that the site wouldn't set any "tracking" cookies. The whole "privacy breach" bullshit stems from the bug where if you already had a G+ cookie but not an ad cookie and you had ad tracking enabled on your account, when you encountered embedded G+ on a site the ad cookie would get set as well. This only worked because you *already* had cookies from Google, which is why Safari would accept the cookie in the first place.

Of course, anyone with any clue how cookies works knows that removing the ad cookie doesn't actually change anything - it doesn't affect the data Google gets (they already know who you are with the legitimately set cookies that triggers webkit's special case in the first place - aka, the user being logged in), and it doesn't do anything by itself. No privacy implications whatsoever, no exploits, nothing. A story was made over nothing because the people that fueled the story had no clue what they were reporting on.

Did you know that CISPA also isn't at all what most people here seem to think it is? All it does is let the government tell ISPs that it's detecting potential cyber security threats from a computer/network - the ISP isn't required to actually *DO* anything with that info, nor is it granting the government more monitoring than it already has. As Google is also a massive ISP them backing the ability for the govt to inform them of unusual traffic makes a lot of sense. The bill may have some problem areas that need to be addressed, but unlike SOPA/PIPA its intended goal is completely reasonable and logical.

Android, Chrome, iGoogle, Bookmarks, Play (store, music, etc..), News, Picasa, Earth, Docs, Calendar, Talk, Translate, Sites, Groups, Blogger, Reader, Finance

Some of those arguably collect data to support ads, but most don't.