GoogleInc.(pronounced [gu ː gəl] ) is a company founded on 27 September 1998 in the Silicon Valley in California , by Larry Page and Sergey Brin , founders of search engine Google . The company is best known through the monopoly of its search engine, online cash advance historically competed by AltaVista then by Yahoo! and Bing , but also by some of its flagship software, such as Google Earth . Google’s mission is “to organize information around the world and make it universally accessible and useful” one . Eric Schmidt has been the CEO ( CEO ) until 4 April 2011 , and is now replaced by Larry Page 2 .
Google is one of the first companies in the U.S. and global recovery. In early 2008, the company was listed on 210 billion dollars to the Stock Exchange Wall Street . The company has approximately 20,000 employees , most of whom work at the world headquarters: the Googleplex in Mountain View in California . Google continues to grow year after year, thanks to a policy of horizontal concentration , for both the start-up as larger companies.
Google is one of the largest companies in the internet market. In 2011, Google had a fleet of over 900 000 servers 3 , against 400 000 in 2006 4 , which makes the server farm the largest in the world ( 2% of the total number of machines), machines with distributed 32 sites. Meanwhile, the search engine Google has indexed more than 1 000 billion of web pages in 2008 5 . In October 2010, Google represents 6.4% of global Internet traffic and is growing faster than the web 6 .
Google publishes numerous software and free services that extend beyond research (email, office suite, video, photo, blog, …). However, Phen375 Reviews the situation growing monopoly and issues of privacy concern more and more of the casual visitor to some large organizations. Google has also been the subject of several lawsuits, including several cases of compatibility of copyright and its platform Google Books .
The company name Google has its origin in the mathematical term “googol” or gogol in French, which means 10 100 , that is to say a number starting with 1 followed by one hundred zeros 7 . Larry Page and Sergey Brin asked in 1997, other students in computer science, assistance to name the fruits of their labor. The idea would come from Sean Anderson, who suggested “googolplex 8 “, a name that attracted Larry Page. He asked her to go register the domain name “googol.” Sean Anderson would be a mistake in the name entry, striking google.com 8 . Others argue that the denver martial arts domain name was not available for already allocated 9 , and that, therefore, the name was changed voluntarily.
For this fault, chosen or imposed, Google takes the place of googol , simpler and easier to remember, and become famous around the world: in 2006 , the name of search engine , then the company, was among the 10 world’s most famous 10 and would have become since the first well-known brand in the world 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 . Some dictionaries have now included the verb to google in their pages, with the sense to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the web 15 .
Moreover, the similarity with the English word goggles meaning “eye,” says the two [ O ] of the brand. If we can not attribute the pay day loan origin, Google uses the pun in its search services photo: Google goggles 16 . Also, 10 gogol (a figure 1 followed by gogol zeros) is called a gogolplex , which is the name of the headquarters of Google 17 .
This term represents the goals that Google has set: “to organize the immense amount of information available on the Web and the world 7 . ” While the number of indexable Web pages is huge (more than one billion ), it is minimal compared to a retard . This number, from which the name Google, expresses the potentially huge size and universal world of internet , unique area of business activity.
Identity
Main article: Google logo .
The logo of Google is very simple, and comes from its search engine . It consists of the word police written in Google Catull , whose letters are colored in the following sequence blue-red-yellow-blue-green-red. This composition has not changed since 1999, except that the word “beta” and the exclamation mark has disappeared. It was created by Ruth Kedar, who taught design at the Stanford University at the time when the founders of search engine, Larry Page and Sergey Brin , studied 18 . The architecture of color and form is found on many products, including Gmail .
If the company logo does not change, that of its search engine is regularly replaced for a day to celebrate or commemorate an event. These logos are present only on the home page, are then adapted to the visual theme of the day. These are the Google Doodles (” doodle “is a scribble in English , and allows a paronomasia with ” Google “).
You can see the Google logo in ASCII art by searching the same term in the search engine Google.
History
Google is growing its search engine
Birth of Google for its search engine
Google has created in the tradition of California: the beginning in a garage with a reduced hardware. Coordinates: 37 ° 27 ’28 “N 122 ° 09 ’50 “W
The foundations of the history of the company Google began by meeting with two students from the Stanford University in 1995. In that year, Sergey Brin (23) and Larry Page (24) are “virtually disagree on any 19 ” . This does not however prevent them in January 1996 , starting work on a new search engine . They call their project BackRub 19 . They envision a software that would analyze the relationships between Web sites to provide better results than those given by their competitors at the time, Altavista particular.
Once their work is completed, the two students begin to realize their project search engine, and for this purpose, buy a terabyte hard drive used to create a database. This installation summary took place in the room of Larry Page 20 . Sergey rents an office and began looking for funding. David Filo, founder of Yahoo is worth the benefit of their research, but encourages them to create their own search engine rather than sell their work 20 .
Andy Bechtolsheim , a founder of Sun Microsystems , was persuaded by Sergey and Larry and a check Denver Divorce Lawyer for $ 100 000 to fund their engine. The company Google is not yet created and Larry keep the check in his drawer for a few weeks time to complete the legal formalities 20 .
The two entrepreneurs seeking parallel family and friends, and come finally to raise one million dollars to found the company. Google Inc.. installed in a garage in Menlo , rented by a friend in September 1998. The company employs three people then: Sergey, Larry and Craig Silverstein is now director of Google Technology 20 .
The rise of the motor
Main article: Google search engine .
While the engine is still in beta , it responds to nearly 10,000 requests per day.
In December 1998 , PC Magazine Google class in its list of top 100 sites in the world 21 , GPress 1 . In February 1999 , is 500,000 daily queries that Google has to manage. Outgrowing the garage that hosts, Google is moving in March, in an office on Avenue of the University of Palo Alto and eight people work there now 20 . In August 1999 , the figure of three million daily searches is crossed.
From January 1999 , the world’s press began to echo the performance of this new search engine . The French hcg diet newspaper Le Monde writes that the choice of Google technology “is very effective for use” . Thus, a search with the words “Bill Clinton” refers first to the site of the White House , so that AltaVista does not reveal the site after dozens of other references 22 . Another advantage: Google displays the key words in bold in the context of a sentence for each link, so that Altavista does, then, that the links themselves.
On 7 June 1999 , Google gets $ 25 million investment from venture capital companies GPress 2 . Omid Kordestani left Netscape to join Google as Vice-Director of Sales. Michael Moritz and John Doerr , who had contributed to the rise of Sun Microsystems , Intuit , Amazon.com and Yahoo! , sit around the table tennis – which is the executive office – along with Ram Shriram 20 . The company moved again to its final location, the Googleplex , located in Mountain View in California . The search engine , previously in beta , completes its test phase on September 9. Google then provides the management of 3 million searches per day.
On 9 May 2000 , the search engine is available in 10 new languages: German, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish 23 , allowing the company to enter new markets and gain importance. Just one month later, in June 2000 , Google is the first search engine to have referenced a billion web pages . The company seeks to expand the scope of its engine by focusing on Asia, with Chinese, Japanese and Korean (September 12) GPress 3 , then the world, accounting for 26 languages from 27 March 2001 4 GPress . Late October 2000 , Google signed a partnership with Yahoo! and begins to offer the targeted advertising based on keywords 24 . The year 2000 ends with the release of the Google Toolbar ( Google Toolbar ), as proposed for download free GPress 5 , and saw daily traffic from the site exceed 100 million queries 20 , 25 , representing more of 1000 requests / second on average. For its success and exponential growth, the company became a global phenomenon press.
In March 2001 , Larry Page and Sergey Brin rely on Eric Schmidt , the president of Novell , to head the company, as President initially GPress 6 and CEO as of 6 August 2001 7 GPress , five days after opening the first overseas office, located in Tokyo 19 . The year 2001 will have been completed by a physical conquest of the world and the announcement of the 3 billionth page indexed GPress 8 . On 4 September 2001 , Google gets the validation of its patent for PageRank .
The search continues to grow, is available in over 100 languages in 2004 and 150 in 2010 19 . In 2010, Google is the first search engine on the Internet, 80% of U.S. Internet users use against only 35% of Chinese, who prefer the tool Chinese Baidu .
On 12 August 2011 , the site announces an update of its algorithm called “Panda” in all versions of the site (except the Chinese, Japanese and Korean) in order to reduce the visibility of sites with no added values such as price comparison sites or content aggregators 26 .
Diversification of the company’s products
Main article: List of Google acquisitions .
Growth and diversification
First product other than the search engine provided.
It is from 2002 the company diversified its business based on its previously search engine . In this year, Google offers companies the GB-1001 Google Search Appliance , a solution that is both hardware and software allowing to “connect to their network to take advantage of the search functions on their own documents 19 ” . Google would not reveal the name of its manufacturing partner for hardware devices, which he described as components based on Intel operating Linux . This product was installed in rack servers, storing an index of 150,000 documents (10GB) at a price of $ 20 000 . He was broken down into another model, the GB-8008, more efficient but more expensive ( $ 250,000 ) 27 .
The function Labs is also an important novelty of this year. It allows users curious to test the services and products not finalized, but the output approach in public 28 . In addition, AdWords sees its pricing established the number of clicks (February 20, 2002). In September , the online service Google News is available, and can display web pages on the news based on keywords from the user. This service is based at the start of more than 4000 sources 29 . A month later opened a new office in Australia , at Sydney , while the total of the company exceeds 1600 employees 19 . As a result, the company opened its new Googleplex, an architecturally complex organized as a campus, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View , where 800 people work.
On 22 January 2004 Google tries in the world of social networks by developing its own website social networking : Orkut . However, this project does not meet the expected success, except in Brazil and India . For the sake of communication, Google launches its own blog to publish official currency of the company, its products and technologies 19 . On April 29, 2004, the company issues a request to the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public GPress 9 . This request will result on 18 August 2004 by its introduction on the NASDAQ on Wall Street, and the sale of 19,605,052 shares at a price initial $ 85 GPress 10 .
The 1 st April 2004 Google offers Gmail GPress 11 , its own service e-mail with an initial capacity of 1 GB announced doubled in 2005 . This capability is completely new and crushes the competition, following the example of MSN Hotmail , the capacity it was 500 times less than 30 . This storage is revolutionizing messaging freed when the message store on the computer using software such as’ Outlook . Gmail thus establishes the era of e- mail online. At launch, registration required, however an invitation. Its success is reflected in an increasing number of users, 176 million beginning in 2010 31 .
Google offers an image viewer for purchase beginning in July 2004 GPress 12 of Picasa . This software is coupled to an online account for storing a gallery of 100 MB . The service will experience some success, but will fight against the service Flickr to Yahoo! launched earlier this year and will compete with the Windows Live Photos by 2008. On 6 October 2004 , Google set up its European Centre in Dublin in Ireland with a staff of 150 people a Gblog . Three weeks later, we learn the acquisition of Keyhole, a digital mapping company that will be the basis for Google Earth GPress 13 , but not publish the software in the year, which ends with the launch of Google Desktop search on 14 October 2 Gblog of Google Scholar four days later Gblog 3 , and Google Print on December 14 Gblog 4 (renamed Google Books), while the search index shows eight billion web pages Gblog 5 . The company employs at that time more than 3000 employees 19 .
But in October 2011, Google announced the closure of several services in January 2012. This is Buzz (a social network launched in 2010), Jaiku (social network purchased in 2007) Code Search (search tool open source code on the web), social functions integrated into iGoogle and The University Research Program for Google Search (API program that provided access to research results to university researchers) 32 .
The company dui lawyer chicago built its reputation
On 8 February 2005 , Google enters the world of digital mapping by launching a line of its most popular products: Google Maps Gblog 6 . This service is free but limited to the United States , in Canada and Britain . Thursday, 27 April 2006 it covers France , the German , the Spanish and the Italian , and subsequently expand the areas available. Less than two months later, the popular functions to calculate routes and satellite views are integrated Gblog 7 . This service will later be used for location-based mobile phones Gblog 8 make t shirts and GPS . On 20 April, Google introduced in the Labs a display feature and search history, and statistics to use search engine Gblog 9 . May 19, the company invites users of its search engine to customize their home page through iGoogle Gblog 10 . On June 28, the concept of Google maps is taken for the software Google Earth that includes some improvements, including the topography in relief, some buildings in 3D, then the underwater view. Maps retains its simplicity as the main innovations are reserved for cross-platform software. Barely a month later, Google offers its own translation tool free online Gblog 11 . It will experience a huge success, both for users and for students and contribute again to the reputation of the company. The same week, the company announced the release of its own instant messaging Gtalk . This software is based on open protocol XMPP , and allows Voip Gblog 12 . It will then able to video chat , and use free online software downloaded previously. However, despite these innovations, the failure looming puisqu’incapable compete Skype and MSN Messenger . It’s time for Google Reader to see the day beginning October 13 Gblog , Google Analytics November 14 Gblog 14 , then the adjustment to the telephony service Gmail the next 14 GPress .
Google has built its reputation for dynamic and innovative with the release of software and services useful for all, efficient and above all free. Google then counts 5680 employees 19 .
Cloud Computing for Google users
Main article: Cloud Computing .
On 20 January 2006 Google attacks the Chinese market, representing over 110 million Internet 33 , with a trend of strong growth for years to come with the democratization of Internet access. Google also deplores in this country “a service that, frankly, is not very good” Gblog 15 . Meanwhile, Google operates one of the largest acquisitions ever made by acquiring the platform for online video sharing YouTube for 1.65 billion shares in the company GPress 15 . On March 9, we learn the buyout offer an editor Writely online word processing, acquired for $ 8 million in 34 , with the intent to Container Store use as a base for the project Google Docs using the same concept which will be announced to him, six months later Gblog 16 . Late March, Google Finance comes out cartons of Google. This is a tool to track online courses and exchange Gblog 17 . Google Calendar , a free online calendar is announced on April 13 Gblog 18 . These creations of multiple online services are designed to introduce the possibility for users to take advantage of Google cloud . These services are then dedicated to the professionals by Google Apps , the 28 August 2006 Gblog 19 . Even when it was released, these services entered aggressively compete with other well established 35 .
Google’s empire
Main article: List of services and products published by Google .
On 30 August 2006 , Google Books service for online reading and downloading of literary fallen into the public domain is developed Gblog 20 , and feed the many controversies. The company began 2007 with 10 674 employees 19 . In May, Google enables any user to study traffic, research and statistics of its search engine through trends Gblog 21 . A few days later, a major update to Google Maps to navigate virtually through the streets of cities through photos omnidirectional 36 . This is Street View . Being able to watch what happens in people or by chance to see anyone in the street also causes controversy over respect for privacy . May ends with the launch of Relevant Life Policies Google Gears Gblog 22 . The second half of 2007 is characterized by the development and adaptation of existing services in other languages. Last highlight, the announcement of a November 5 OS for mobile phones, Android Gblog 23 , which compete with Symbian OS and Windows Mobile . This event is part of market research in the mobile phone that offers more opportunities for surfing. There are 16,805 employees in the company in late 19 .
The project Google Apps is completed on 28 February 2008 by the introduction of Google Sites to Google allows any user to easily create their own web site in an area provided by Google Gblog 24 . This is an inexpensive alternative – the standard version of Google Apps is free – compared to commercial products such Criminal Defense Attorney Chicago as SharePoint from Microsoft . In May, according to principles similar to Wikipedia , Google announces plans Knol 37 . During the following months, no significant output is reached, but the teams working on Google products already launched. Indeed, the company seeks to increase the number of its available tools including Google Translate , Google Finance and Street View 19 . Meanwhile, Maps becomes a tool to help aid in natural disasters, providing updated satellite maps and displaying various data. Some adjustments are also announced as the support of the Unicode 5.1 Gblog 25 and the adoption of IPv6 Gblog 26 . The effort to internationalize software and services continues with the objective of translation in 40 languages to an audience of an estimated 98% Gblog 27 . This relatively low activity is preparing to release its own browser , Google Chrome is formalized a st September 2008 Gblog 28 by a cartoon 38 , creating a buzz , because the context and the reputation acquired by the company American. The browser will experience significant growth as it reaches two years later 6% market share. Several versions and updates will follow.
On 27 May 2009 , Google announced its intention to develop Google Wave , a product billed as revolutionary. This is a web application whose concept mixes the concepts of service e-mail , to instant messaging , the wiki and social networking , all associated with a spell checker and an instant translation. A first phase of beta testing for the 30 September 2009 with the distribution of 100,000 accounts 39 people who have registered on their site with the desire to report bugs.
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On 7 July 2009 , Google announced the project to develop Google Chrome OS , an operating system based on open-source Linux Gblog 29 . This OS is meant to light and suitable for netbooks booming.
In November 2009 Google Music indexes to music on the search engine in the U.S. to start 40 .
To ensure its energy independence and reduce energy bills, Google announced in December 2009 its intention to found Google Energy. For this purpose in January 2010 Google has applied to take industrial status 41 .
After much speculation and some ads on 5 January 2010 Google is officially unveiling his phone during a press conference at its headquarters in Mountain View 42 . The Google phone is produced by HTC . This action is again in the ambition to conquer the mobile Internet. This choice is confirmed by the strong rumors of launching a netbook running Chrome OS signed by the giant California 43 .
On 11 February, Google made a bid to provide the establishment of a network of fiber optics to 1 Gbps to 50,000 people or more 44 . If this ad suggests that Google wanted to become an ISP , the company has tempered his ambition by saying that it was more a test than anything else 44 . A month later, over 100 U.S. cities of1, mainly on the east coast , have applied for membership, supported by over 200 000 individual requests 45 .
In order to create a competitor to Facebook, Google Me , the summer of 2010, the Mountain View company is embarking on several financial transactions for the purchase of six companies whose business would allow it to reach that goal. Thus, were purchased Slide (between 182 and $ 228 million), Jambool, Angstro, Zynga (purchased between 100 and $ 200 million), Like.com ($ 100 million) and SocialDeck 46 . On June 28, 2011, Google launched its social networking service Google + always with a view to compete with Facebook .
In 2011, the company reached the one billion unique visitors per month 47 .
On August 15, 2011, Google announced its intention to acquire Motorola Mobility for the sum of $ 12.5 billion.
Google and China
Related articles: Internet censorship in China and Operation Aurora .
Deposit flower for the refusal of the conditions imposed by China
In 2006 , Google agreed to curb its search engine in order to establish themselves in China . The Chinese government has indeed imposed certain conditions for the entry of the internet, censorship in particular. The co-founders explain that “To work from China, we have removed some content of the research results obtained on cheap auto insurance quotes Google.cn, in accordance with legislation and local regulations 48 . ”
Thus, from 25 January 2006 49 , an image search on ” Tiananmen “displays in Google.fr, the famous photo of the student to the tanks blocking the road , the symbol of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations , while that on Google.cn, the results show happy family portraits or pictures of monuments 50 . This action has been much attention in the media world. However, such censorship has been undertaken voluntarily in the same manner to sites racist , Islamic or revisionist , in French and German versions of Google 51 in accordance with the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime of 2001 .
However, the 12 January 2010 , a double attack pirate massive and “highly sophisticated” came from China known as ” Operation Aurora ‘has targeted more than twenty companies including Adobe , Google and Intel . This allowed the authors Chrome Wire Shelving stealing trade secrets and copy the mails to thousands of exiled Chinese activists and human rights 52 . These patients, despite the respect and enforcement of conditions imposed by the Chinese government will cause the wrath of the California company that will threaten not to apply any censorship recognizing that this decision could force her to leave the country, but remove direct services from China Gblog 30 , 53 .
The announcement was seen by some as a forum bluff, because the Internet market is very buoyant (384 million Internet users in late 2009 33 ) and Microsoft announced its intention to continue its activities with Bing still 54 . To honor and affirm their support for such decisions, many Chinese put down on the building bearing the company logo flowers, candles and words of support 55 . These actions have become high-profile events, and the case took the habits of a diplomatic incident between the U.S. and China .
Places and activity centers
Related article: Google Platform .
Offices in Spain
Offices of Google China in Beijing
Google has facilities and offices around the world, even if they are more numerous in Europe, the United States , India and China coastal 56 . The main location is in place the development of Google is the Googleplex located in California . The Googleplex consists of four main buildings, totaling 47,038 m² on a plot of 11 hectares .
The company Google has a complex to New York in search of new services.
Google is also based in Europe with headquarters in Dublin in Ireland . In March 2008 , the company creates a new complex in Zurich , in Switzerland , for its development in Europe .
Several buildings are located in the Near East and Middle East: in Israel , in Dubai and Qatar .
In South Africa, are present on the premises of Google for its development in Africa.
There is only one site in Asia located in Singapore .
The Australian site based in Sydney was born Google Maps. Google Wave was also developed there.
Google created from a complex server 2007 in Mons, Belgium, in the industrial area of Ghlin – Baudour . A diversion channel Nimy-Blaton for cooling and a line of railway are planned.
On the occasion of a visit to France, Eric Schmidt announced the 9 September 2010 establishing a research and development in Paris 57 .
Technology and Intellectual Property
PageRank
The Google search engine is mainly based on the Plastic Storage Bins exploitation of technology PageRank . The first patent (6,285,999 US B1, entitled “Method for Node Ranking in a Linked Database”), filed in January 1997 and registered on 9 January 1998 , is owned by the Stanford 58 . The text of the patent is available on the website of the Patent Office of the United States , which has licensed the technology to Google in 1998 (amended in 2000 and 2003), two months after its founding. This is an exclusive license until 2011, the exclusivity ending on that date 59 .
The research that led to the development of the PageRank technology was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (Grant NSF – IRI-9411306-4). It is stated in the patent that the government has certain rights in this invention 60 .
Google and the Open Source
Google is largely due to free software on which it was built from the outset, as Linux , MySQL and Python , it has improved in return. Google employs Andrew Morton , a very important contributor to the Linux kernel, Guido van Rossum , creator and Benevolent Dictator for Life of Python, and has contributed code to MySQL .
The free software allows Google to identify talented programmers are able to imagine not only technical solutions but also to implement them. To attract them, Google has created a work environment where innovation is encouraged, ideas, techniques, projects and participation in open source . And each developer has 20% free time to work on a project of their choice, whether free or not, allowing creativity to express themselves.
Google also supports the Mozilla Foundation through a partnership, as Mozilla’s mission – “to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet” – serves the interests of Google. Google is the search engine default search bar in Mozilla Firefox for many languages. Firefox users are using search on Google and click on AdSense ads. Revenues that Google draws are then shared with Mozilla, which allows them to have the financial means to improve web standards and software that they publish (including Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird ), prompting other publishers Web browser to do the same. In the end, the Internet as a whole benefits from these improvements, and Google (or other) can then use these new capabilities in its products with its rapid cycle of innovation.
Google contributes greatly to the open source and supports:
The Google Summer of Code [6] allows to maintain the open source community by bringing students to free software, for they bring fresh ideas and code and they may become new regular contributors to these projects.
Google Code Hosting [7] offers accommodation to free software projects
Google Code Search [8] allows you to search the source code freely available online
16 million lines of code released as open source in more than 500 projects, 61
Many projects open source have been established 62 and published under the Apache License 2 that Google likes of which the best known are:
Chromium , the core open source web browser Google Chrome
Android , the operating system for mobile devices
Google Web Toolkit , a software library for programming applications AJAX in Java
Google Wave , a new platform for communication, at the intersection of e-mail , the blog , the wiki , and instant messaging
Go , a new language for systems programming
Proprietary software
Google also publishes proprietary software such as Google Sketchup , Google Desktop , Picasa or Google Talk .
Finance
Source of income
AdWords : Google sells keywords auction. If someone does a search with that word, the links from those sites who participated in the auction in the fall of trade links. Whenever a person selects one of these links, the company concerned should pay a certain amount to Google.
System AdSense : a web site can accommodate the AdWords ads on their pages thanks to AdSense, Google returns a portion of his winnings to the site.
Storage space: Google offers a generous and free storage for its users to save documents on Google servers and access them from anywhere. When a user reaches the limit of disk space allowed per user, it can purchase additional disk space.
Google Apps: Google offers a collaboration solution that combines several office tools and production: Create and edit Word, Excel, calendar, task manager, … A free version of Google Apps is available to any user, but organizations / companies wishing to ramp up with this solution can pay monthly for additional services.
Financial data
Google is one of the startups that have crossed safely the crash of NASDAQ in 2001 , mainly because it was not listed. The company has introduced in exchange for a rarely used auction in May 2004 which has compressed from 5.5 to 1.5% of the fees charged by investment banks, introduced $ 80 , the action stood at $ 250 a year later, which valued the company at nearly 74 billion dollars. Beginning in 2006 , the action cost $ 460 or so, she crossed the threshold of $ 600 ( $ 609.62 ) on 8 October 2007 , and then the $ 700 on 31 October 2007 , which places it fourth in terms of capitalization 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 acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft , Google stock has fallen from $ 712 in late 2007 to $ 609 in February 2008 .
The code of the action on the NASDAQ is GOOG.Tax Strategy
In order to avoid paying taxes that are applied most U.S. and European companies, Google uses the technique known as ” tax optimization “, a modern form of tax evasion, through tax havens . The licenses Europe, Middle East and Africa brand operated by a company domiciled in Bermuda . And “to escape the U.S. Treasury , which requires 35% of corporate auto transport profits repatriated from abroad, the multinational let them sleep in Bahamas 65 . ”
According to Bloomberg , Google would have realized a savings of 3.1 billion of taxes on taxes on profits in 2007 and 2009. In 2009, Google would be able to lower its tax rate to 2.4% of its business outside the United States, through its Irish subsidiary through which passes 88% of its international activities. The tax rate on corporate profits in Ireland is, in fact, 12.5% against 25% average in other countries where Google generates most of its revenue. But Google also sought to reduce the amount of taxable profits of its Irish subsidiary by requiring it to pay back royalties to a Dutch subsidiary, a denver accident lawyer sine qua non in order that Ireland grants tax exemption to Google Ireland Holdings, twin Google Ireland Limited, the operating subsidiary. Google Ireland Holdings transfers its charge to the Dutch subsidiary which then transfers to Bermuda. This strategy has enabled the company to earn more than $ 39 billion in cash 66 .
Communication
“Do not be evil”
Google’s slogan is Do not be evil 67 (literally, “Do not be evil”). In spring 2004, the same phrase appeared at the top of the mail sent to investors, some time before their IPO. Larry Page wrote that “With this sentence that is our motto, we attempted to precisely define what being a force beneficial means – always do the right thing, ethically ” . This motto pretty much sums up the supposed will of Larry Page and Sergey Brin , Bankruptcy which tends to make Google a company that works for a better world 68 .
The company has sometimes been taken to task on its slogan, especially about the filter preventing access to sites or pages containing certain words from China . She explained that it believed it was better for a Chinese Google users imperfect than no Google at all. In particular, google.cn careful not to appear on its pages response strings that cause the disconnection of the user by automatically monitoring mechanisms must ensure that service providers.
A company discreet
Google is known for its discretion, or to silence journalists. A rather famous example is that of Mark Jen, a new employee who arrives at Google on Monday 17 January 2005 . This creates a blog , recounting his impressions of the company. But gradually, the tone of the blog becomes rebellious, Mark Jen going so far as to declare that “The benefits Microsoft in care ridicule those offered by Google. ” . On January 28 , Mark Jen learns her dismissal, because of his blog. This example illustrates the will of the company’s discretion, journalists arriving almost never get an interview with the two founders, Brin and Page 69 .
Environmental commitments
To be consistent with its policy of sustainable development , services are organized carpools and travel between the buildings are made by bicycle. The buildings are topped by thousands of collectors. In the same aim, instead of using lawn mowers to clear the area around the Googleplex in measures of fire protection, the company hired 200 goats 70 , 31 Gblog …
However this view is challenged by the company’s reputation of being a large consumer of energy 71 , through its server farms .
June 2011, we learn that the Mountain View company injected $ 280 million in the company SolarCity, bringing its total investment in green energy to $ 680 million 72 .
In late September 2011, the research specialist partners with Clean Power Finance and invested $ 75 million to install solar energy systems in private homes in order to democratize the energy to citizens 73 .
A new form of work, “googlisme”?
Related article: Organization of work .
Google is a company of the Internet known for an employment policy and management work very innovative.
Google intends to work with a hierarchy lightweight and binding. Autonomy and Liberal coaching offer employees jobs less stressful. Schedules are drawn up to establish the guidelines of the collective work, however, Google encourages its employees to adhere to the policy of 80-20 : a schedule consisting of 80% of work imposed by management and 20% of time spent on stand-alone projects without significant restrictions 74 .
In addition, Google is trying to create a motivating work environment. Aligned and austere offices, the Californian giant leaves employees free to manage the environment in their workplace 75 and promotes teamwork. To do this, the company uses common schedules and wikis internally. Workplaces are also radically different from those of other companies: management offers its employees free use of many entertainment facilities or well-being. The Googleplex , the headquarters of the company includes rest rooms, and pool halls , and sports fields , swimming pool, a service of massage or hairdressing 74 . Employees are allowed to bring their dogs, but not the cat, the Googleplex 76 .
This policy of welfare aims to generate greater motivation and, consequently, a productivity increase 76 . Meanwhile, the extraordinary life should retain employees 76 , ensuring the stability of the payroll 77 , 78 .
Criticism and controversy
Main article: Reviews of Google .
Fears of an abuse of
As Google grows and takes an increasingly important consideration in the management of global information, develop in parallel a lot of criticism of a company which some politicians (eg Jean-Noel Jeanneney 79 ) fear that to abuse its position, including collecting data very private Internet users using its services, and using or renting the use of improperly. A growing number of computer tools has been developed by different groups of activists and militants to limit the intrusive capabilities of Google. Examples of masking advertising AdWords .
These instruments include the network Tor (“The Onion Router”, literally “onion routing”), which anonymizes users (with the obvious result is that Google ads are more targeted) software Scroogle , a “Google Scraper” developed by the activist Daniel Brandt 80 which diverts the search engine, it provides a new IP address every research and accept the installation of cookies on its server before throwing in the trash, or of extension for Mozilla Firefox “Optimize Google,” which allows to anonymize the Google cookie, prevents Google Analytics to collect statistics on the user and also removes the ads, like Adblock Plus (browser extension) . In addition, some sites militant in defense of the protection of private information 81 provide information on how users can assert with advertising, especially with Doubleclick (acquired by Google), their right to require their data not be collected (they are by default, but there is a system of opt-out).
The question of whether it is better to be presented with equal volume of untargeted and targeted advertising is obviously a controversial issue 82 .
Respect for privacy and personal information
The proliferation of services offered by Google garners increased demand for information about users: follow the navigation and storage of keywords, scan mails in Gmail , information supplied fender flares on the forms, among others. This raises the question every innovation of respect for their privacy, as noted by the philosopher and philologist Barbara Cassin in his work on Google. Google crosses these data to refine the user profile and improve the targeting of ads on the Internet.
Such a concentration of information on individuals and conservation advocacy organizations concerned about privacy on the Internet, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation 83 or the “Working Group on Article 29 84 “of the European Commission, a new form of sophisticated surveillance and a danger to personal freedom. Recently, Google was placed at the bottom of the ranking 85 developed by the NGO Privacy International , which says that Google is ” the enemy of privacy due to the total surveillance of users . ” All this is particularly worrying since Google has signed a security with the NSA , Secret Service of the United States of America, suggesting the provision of information of users of these services 86 . Google is also attacked in Germany by the German equivalent of the CNIL, because Google’s Car Collection all information on WiFi hotspots and addresses MAC in its path 87 .
In 2004, Google combined with AOL , Amazon.com , CNET, eBay , Microsoft and Yahoo! , has practiced in the United States lobbying against the Spyware Control Act in Utah forced to seek the explicit consent of the user to activate tracing options or choices before installing a spyware 88 . The reasons for their opposition, they said, were technical, not ethical in the letter sent to Senator Valentine and Representative Urquhart, they recognize the ” good intentions “of the law 89 .
About the possible tracing techniques used by Google, Google Watch , site of the American activist Daniel Brandt , trying to show the flaws chiropractic marketing and lack of neutrality and Google has a proxy , Scroogle, to submit a Google search without watched in any way. He denounced the censure directed among others, in other countries like China 90 , or the United States concerning the invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison .
In this regard, Google initially refused to comply with the injunctions of the U.S. government in late 2006 not giving access to lists of search and URL which was requested to assist a law on the repression of pedophilia. However, they were then given 50 000 URL to the government, but the judge hearing the case ruled that Google did not provide lists of keywords requested by the Government 91 .
In France, the guarantees of respect for the privacy provided by the CNIL does not apply to services whose servers are located outside the national territory. The refusal to Google 92 to comply with local laws thus creates an extension due to U.S. jurisdiction. This refusal earned him the French Big Brother Awards 2007 .
In 2007, the head of the IT expertise of the CNIL considers thus: “In other words, Google can control all the personal data of individuals. By using these tools in a correlated fashion, Google could become a formidable surveillance society. (. .) Customers should be aware that using the services of Google, they give it the ability to monitor 93 . ”
Only Google has not responded to the recommendation of the G29 (European Union), that is to say “to bring to six months maximum, against at least twelve months now, how long the search engines Internet has the right to keep or use personal data 94 . ”
In 2012 , Google changed its policy of confidentiality rules, and plans to store and cross anything about its users: personal data such as name, address, telephone number, card number for payment, technical data on the connected devices and their settings, log Access and use Google tools 95 .
Google Latitude
Google Latitude is a service created in 2009 to determine the position of a person who registered for this service through their mobile phone . In 2009 , this service is available in 27 countries 96 .
This service is controversial: one can see in Latitude a tool to trace the people, the privacy can be achieved, but Google said that this tool has been designed from another perspective: it allows for example to locate on Google maps his children, his friends and colleagues 97 .
Google Books
Main article: Google Books .
Google Books is one of the side projects of the most criticized Google. It is to systematically scan as many books. Critics are concerned about the impact that Google’s dominance may have on the digitization of books in general, and treatment of copyright by Google (or the international distribution of digital versions violate the rights in some countries or that the position of power Google would allow them to gain concessions of rights held to be unfair).
Convictions and sentences
On 21 February 2008 , Google was ordered to pay € 150,000 for infringing 98 .
The EU has imposed heavy fines on several Google for monopoly abuse towards other minority companies.
The branch of Google video, YouTube , has been repeatedly fined up to 1.6 million of dollars to broadcast illegal or breach of copyright .
On 18 December 2009 , Google was ordered to pay € 300,000 in damages Editions du Seuil , Delachaux and Niestlé and Harry N. Abrams and a euro as detrimental to the National Union of publishing (SNE) and the company of men of letters (LDMS) for reprinting in full and making available excerpts of books without permission from the owners -law. The Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris has also banned Google to continue scanning books without permission from the publishers 99 .
On 8 September 2010 , Google is convicted in France for defamation algorithm for certain keywords associated with the term “rape”, “condemned”, “Satan,” “prison” and “rapist 100 . ”
On 24 August 2011 , Google prefers to pay a fine of $ 500 million to U.S. authorities, rather than being pursued by the court for promoted illegal drug 101 .
Environmental impact
According to Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist at Harvard University, queries Google have a significant environmental impact in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases 102 . The server farms of the company are deemed to have a particular use, including cooling systems, representing several nuclear power plants .