History
Main article: History of Google



Google's original homepage had a simple design, since its founders were not experienced in HTML, the language for designing web pages.[25]
Google began in January 1996 as a resrch project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California.[26]
While conventional srch engines ranked results by counting how many times the srch terms appred on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites.[27] They called this new technology PageRank, where a website's relevancewas determined by the of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site.[28][29]
A small srch engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, alrdy exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.[30] The technology in RankDex would be patented[31] and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.[32][33]
Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new srch engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.[34][35][36]
Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol",[37][38] the one followed by one hundred zeros, which was picked to signify that the srch engine wants to provide large quantities of information for people.[39] Originally, Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domains google.stanford.eduand z.stanford.edu.[40][41]
The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997,[42] and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in a friend's (Susan Wojcicki[26]) garage in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.[26][43][44]
In May 2011, the of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time, an 8.4percent incrse from May 2010 (931million).[45]
In January of 2013, Google announced it had rned $50billion in annual revenue for the yr of 2012. This marked the first time Google had rched this ft, topping their 2011 total of $38billion.[46]
Financing and initial public offering



Google's first production server. Google's production servers continue to be built with inexpensive hardware.[47]
The first funding for Google was an August 1998 contribution of US$100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given before Google was even incorporated.[48] rly in 1999, while still graduate students, Brin and Page decided that the srch engine they had developed was taking up too much of their time from academic pursuits. They went to Excite CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1million. He rejected the offer, and later criticized Vinod Khosla, one of Excite's venture capitalists, after he had negotiated Brin and Page down to $750,000. On June 7, 1999, a $25million round of funding was announced,[49] with major investors including the venture capitalfirms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.[48]
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five yrs later on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 yrs, until the yr 2024.[50] The company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.[51][52] Shares were sold in a unique online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the dl.[53][54] The sale of $1.67billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23billion.[55] The vast majority of the 271million shares remained under the control of Google, and many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited because it owned 8.4million shares of Google before the IPO took place.[56]
Some people speculated that Google's IPO would inevitably ld to changes in company culture. Rsons ranged from shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions to the fact that many company executives would become instant paper millionaires.[57] As a reply to this concern, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised in a report to potential investors that the IPO would not change the company's culture.[58] In 2005, however, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.[59][60][61] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture r, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture r is to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on: a flat organization with a collaborative environment.[62] Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.[63][64]
The stock's performance after the IPO went well, with shares hitting $700 for the first time on October 31, 2007,[65] primarily because of strong sales and rnings in the online advertisingmarket.[66] The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.[66] The company is now listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG and under the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1.
Growth
In March 1999, the company moved its s to Palo Alto, California, home to several other noted Silicon Valleytechnology startups.[67] The next yr, against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded srch engine,[68] Google began selling advertisements associated with srch words.[26] In order to maintain an uncluttered page design and incrse speed, advertisements were solely text-based. words were sold based on a combination of price bids and click-throughs, with bidding starting at five cents per click.[26] This model of selling word advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idlab spin-off crted by Bill Gross.[69][70] When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later be bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Srch Marketing. The case was then settled out of court, with Google agreeing to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual .[71]
During this time, Google was granted a patent describing its PageRank mechanism.[72] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. In 2003, after outgrowing two other loions, the company lsed an complex from Silicon Graphics at 1600 Amphithtre Parkway in Mountain View, California.[73] The complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the one followed by a googol zeroes. The Googleplex interiors were designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Three yrs later, Google would buy the property from SGI for $319million.[74] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-WebsterCollegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as "to use the Google srch engine to obtain information on the Internet."[75][76]
Acquisitions and partnerships
See also: List of mergers and acquisitions by Google



Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2003
Since 2001, Google has acquired many companies, mainly focusing on small venture capital companies. In 2004, Google acquired hole, Inc.[77] The start-up company developed a product called rth Viewer that gave a three-dimensionalview of the rth. Google renamed the service to Google rth in 2005. Two yrs later, Google bought the online site YouTube for $1.65billion in stock.[78] On April 13, 2007, Google rched an agreement to acquire DoubleClickfor $3.1billion, giving Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising acies.[79] Later that same yr, Google purchased GrandCentralfor $50million.[80] The site would later be changed over to Google Voice. On August 5, 2009, Google bought out its first public company, purchasing software maker On2 Technologies for $106.5million.[81] Google also acquired Aardvark, a social network srch engine, for $50million, and commented on its internal blog, "we're looking forward to collaborating to see where we can take it".[82] In April 2010, Google announced it had acquired a hardware startup, Agnilux.[83]
In addition to the many companies Google has purchased, the company has partnered with other organizations for everything from resrch to advertising. In 2005, Google partnered with NASA Ames Resrch Centerto build 1,000,000 square feet (93,000m2) of s.[84] The s would be used for resrch projects involving large-scale data management, nanotechnology, distributed computing, and the entrepreneurial space industry. Google entered into a partnership with Sun Microsystems in October 2005 to help share and distribute ch other's technologies.[85] The company also partnered with AOL of Time Warner,[86] to enhance ch other's srch services. Google's 2005 partnerships also included financing the new .mobi top-level domain for mobile devices, along with other companies including , , and .[87] Google would later launch "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.[88] Incrsing its advertising rch even further, Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corporation entered into a $900million agreement to provide srch and advertising on (at the time) popular social networking site MySpace.[89]
In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired the -sharing site YouTube for US$1.65billion in Google stock, and the dl was finalized on November 13, 2006.[90] Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing.[91] In June 2008, a Forbesmagazine article projected the 2008 YouTube revenue at US$200million, noting progress in advertising sales.[92] In 2007, Google began sponsoring NORAD Tracks Santa, a service that follows Santa Claus' progress on Christmas Eve,[93] using Google rth to "track Santa" in 3-D for the first time,[94] and displacing former sponsor AOL. Google-owned YouTube gave NORAD Tracks Santa its own channel.[95]
In 2008, Google developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41m monochrome, 1.65m color) ry for Google rth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on September 6, 2008.[96] Google also announced in 2008 that it was hosting an archive of Life Magazine's photographs as part of its latest partnership. Some of the s in the archive were never published in the magazine.[97] The photos were watermarked and originally had copyright notices posted on all photos, regardless of public domain status.[98]
In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two loions will erate 169.5megawatts of power, or enough to supply 55,000 homes. The farms, which were developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will reduce fossil fuel use in the region and return profits. NextEra Energy Resources sold Google a twenty percent stake in the project to get funding for its development.[99] Also in 2010, Google purchased Global IP Solutions, a Norway-based company that provides web-based teleconferencing and other related services. This acquisition will enable Google to add telephone-style services to its list of products.[100] On May 27, 2010, Google announced it had also closed the acquisition of the mobile ad network AdMob. This purchase occurred days after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation into the purchase.[101] Google acquired the company for an undisclosed amount.[102] In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of energy for 20 yrs.[103]
On April 4, 2011, The Globe and Mail reported that Google bid $900million for six thousand Nortel Networkspatents.[104]
On August 15, 2011, Google made its largest-ever acquisition to-date when announced that it would acquire Mobility for $12.5billion[105][106] subject to approval from regulators in the United States and Europe. In a post on Google's blog, Google Chief Executive and co-founder Larry Page revled that Google's acquisition of Mobility is a strategic move to strengthen Google's patent portfolio. The company's Android operating system has come under fire in an industry-wide patent battle, as and have taken to court Android device makers such as , and .[107] The merger was completed on the May 22, 2012, after the approval of People's Republic of China.[108]
This purchase was made in part to help Google gain 's considerable patent portfolio on mobile and wireless technologies to help protect it in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies,[109] mainly and [107] and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.[110] After the acquisition closed, Google began to restructure the business to fit Google's strategy. On August 13, 2012, Google announced plans to layoff 4000 Mobility employees. [111] On December 10, 2012, Google sold the manufacturing operations of Mobility to Flextronics for $75million.[112] As a part of the agreement, Flextronics will manufacture undisclosed Android and other mobile devices [113] On December 19, 2012, Google sold the Home business division of Mobility to Arris Group for $2.35billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. As a part of this dl, Google acquired a 15.7% stake in Arris Group valued at $300Million.[114]
On June 5, 2012, Google announced it acquired Quick, a company widely known for their mobile productivity suite for both iOS and Android. Google plans to integrate Quick's technology into its own product suite.[115]
On February 6, 2013, Google announced it has acquired Channel lice for $125million. Channel lice, a technology company that helps customers buy products online, is active globally in 31 different countries and works with over 850 retailers. Google will use this technology to enhance it's ecommerce business. [116]
Google data centers
Google Inc. currently[when?] owns and operates six data centers across the U.S., plus one in Finland and another in Beium. On September 28, 2011, the company announced plans to build three data centers at a cost of more than $200million in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan) and purchased the land for them. Google said they will be operational in one to two yrs.[117][118]
Products and services
See also: List of Google products
Advertising
In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs.[119] For the 2006 fiscal yr, the company reported $10.492billion in total advertising revenues and only $112million in licensing and other revenues.[120] Google has implemented various innovations in the online advertising market that helped make it one of the biggest brokers in the market. Using technology from the company DoubleClick, Google can determine user interests and target advertisements so they are relevant to their context and the user that is viewing them.[121][122] Google Analyticsallows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.[123] Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website, and rn money every time ads are clicked.[124]
One of the disadvantages and criticisms of this program is Google's inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script "clicks" on advertisements without being interested in the product, which causes that advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid.[125] Furthermore, there has been controversy over Google's "srch within a srch", where a secondary srch box enables the user to find what they are looking for within a particular website. It was soon reported that when performing a srch within a srch for a specific company, advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up along with those results, drawing users away from the site they were originally srching.[126]
Another complaint against Google's advertising is its censorship of advertisers, though many cases concern compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For example, in February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Ocna, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship's sewage trtment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advoes against other individuals, groups, or organizations."[127] The policy was later changed.[128] In June 2008, Google rched an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to fture Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely rlized due to antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the dl in November 2008.[129][130]
In an attempt to advertise its own products, Google launched a website called Demo Slam, developed to demonstrate technology demos of Google Products.[131] ch week, two tms compete at putting Google's technology into new contexts. Srch Engine Journal said Demo Slam is "a place where crtive and tech-savvy people can crte s to help the rest of the world understand all the newest and grtest technology out there."[132]
Srch engine
Main article: Google Srch



On February 14, 2012, Google updated its homepage with a minor twist. There are no red lines above the options in the black bar, and there is a tab space before the "+You". The sign-in button has also changed, it is no longer in the black bar, instd under it as a button.
Google Srch, a web srch engine, is the company's most popular service. According to market resrch published by comScore in November 2009, Google is the dominant srch engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%.[133]Google indexes billions[134] of web pages, so that users can srch for the information they desire, through the use of words and operators.
Despite its popularity, it has received criticism from a of organizations. In 2003, The New York Times complained about Google's indexing, claiming that Google's caching of content on its site infringed its copyright for the content.[135] In this case, the United States District Court of Nevada ruled in favor of Google in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.[136][137] Furthermore, the publiion 2600: The Quarterly has compiled a list of words that the web giant's new instant srch fturewill not srch.[138] Google Watch has also criticized Google's PageRank aorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites,[139] and has made allegations about connections between Google and the National Security Acy (NSA) and the Central lice Acy (CIA).[140] Despite criticism, the basic srch engine has sprd to specific services as well, including an srch engine, the Google News srch site, Google Maps, and more. In rly 2006, the company launched Google , which allowed users to upload, srch, and watch s from the Internet.[141] In 2009, however, uploads to Google were discontinued so that Google could focus more on the srch aspect of the service.[142] The company even developed Google Desktop, a desktop srch appliion used to srch for files local to one's computer (discontinued in 2011). Google's most recent development in srch is its partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark to crte Google Patents, which enables free access to information about patents and trademarks.
One of the more controversial srch services Google hosts is Google Books. The company began scanning books and uploading limited previews, and full books where allowed, into its new book srch engine. The Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in a New York City federal court against Google in 2005 over this new service. Google replied that it is in compliance with all existing and historical appliions of copyright laws regarding books.[143] Google eventually rched a revised settlement in 2009 to limit its scans to books from the U.S., the UK, Australia and Canada.[144] Furthermore, the Paris Civil Court ruled against Google in late 2009, asking it to remove the works of La Martinière (Éditions du Seuil) from its database.[145] In competition with Amazon.com, Google plans to sell digital versions of new books.[146]
On July 21, 2010, in response to newcomer Bing, Google updated its srch to display a strming sequence of thumbnails that enlarge when pointed at. Though web srches still appr in a batch per page format, on July 23, 2010, dictionary definitions for certain English words began appring above the linked results for web srches.[147] Google's aorithm was changed in March 2011, giving more weight to high-quality content[148] possibly by the use of n-grams to remove spun content.[149]
Productivity tools
In addition to its standard web srch services, Google has relsed over the yrs a of online productivity tools. Gmail, a free webmail service provided by Google, was launched as an invitation-only beta program on April 1, 2004,[150] and became available to the eral public on February 7, 2007.[151] The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009,[152] at which time it had 146million users monthly.[153] The service would be the first online email service with one gigabyteof storage, and the first to keep emails from the same conversation together in one thrd, similar to an Internet forum.[150] The service currently offers over 7600 MB of free storage with additional storage ranging from 20 GB to 16 TB available for US$0.25 per 1 GB per yr.[154] Furthermore, software developers know Gmail for its pioneering use of AJAX, a programming technique that allows web pages to be interactive without refreshing the browser.[155] One criticism of Gmail has been the potential for data disclosure, a risk associated with many online web appliions. Steve Ballmer ('s CEO),[156] Liz Figueroa,[157] Mark Rasch,[158] and the editors of Google Watch[159] believe the processing of email message content goes beyond proper use, but Google claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never rd by a human being beyond the account holder, and is only used to improve relevance of advertisements.[160]
Google Docs, another part of Google's productivity suite, allows users to crte, edit, and collaborate on documents in an online environment, not dissimilar to Word. The service was originally called Writely, but was obtained by Google on March 9, 2006, where it was relsed as an invitation-only preview.[161] On June 6 after the acquisition, Google crted an experimental sprdsheet editing program,[162] which would be combined with Google Docs on October 10.[163] A program to edit presentations would complete the set on September 17, 2007,[164]before all three services were taken out of beta along with Gmail, Google Calendar and all products from the Google Apps Suite on July 7, 2009.[152]
Enterprise products



Google's srch appliance at the 2008 RSA Conference
Google entered the enterprise market in February 2002 with the launch of its Google Srch Appliance, targeted toward providing srch technology for larger organizations.[26] Google launched the Mini three yrs later, which was targeted at smaller organizations. Late in 2006, Google began to sell Custom Srch Business Edition, providing customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index. The service was renamed Google Site Srch in 2008.[165]
Google Apps is another primary Google enterprise service offering. The service allows organizations to bring Google's web appliion offerings, such as Gmail and Google Docs, into its own domain. The service is available in several editions: a basic free edition (formerly known as Google Apps Standard edition), Google Apps for Business, Google Apps for Eduion, and Google Apps for Government. Special editions include extras such as more space, API access, a service level agreement (SLA), premium support, and additional apps. In the same yr Google Apps was launched, Google acquired Postini[166] and proceeded to integrate the company's security technologies into Google Apps[167] under the name Google Postini Services.[168]
Additional Google enterprise offerings include geospatial solutions (e.g., Google rth and Google Maps); security and archival solutions (e.g., Postini); and Chromebooks for business and eduion (i.e., personal computing run on browser-centric operating systems).
Other products



4, the latest "Google phone"
Google Translate is a server-side machine translation service, which can translate between 35 different languages. Browser extensions allow for sy access to Google Translate from the browser. The software uses corpus linguistics techniques, where the program "lrns" from professionally translated documents, specifically UN and Europn Parliament proceedings.[169]Furthermore, a "suggest a better translation" fture accompanies the translated text, allowing users to indie where the current translation is incorrect or otherwise inferior to another translation.
Google launched its Google Newsservice in 2002. The site proclaimed that the company had crted a "highly unusual" site that "offers a news service compiled solely by computer aorithms without human intervention. Google employs no editors, managing editors, or executive editors."[170] The site hosted less d news content than Yahoo! News, and instd presented topically selected links to news and opinion pieces along with reproductions of their hdlines, story lds, and photographs.[171] The photographs are typically reduced to thumbnail size and placed next to hdlines from other news sources on the same topic in order to minimize copyright infringement claims. Nevertheless, Ace France Presse sued Google for copyright infringement in federal court in the District of Columbia, a case which Google settled for an undisclosed amount in a pact that included a of the full text of AFP articles for use on Google News.[172]
In 2006, Google made a bid to offer free wireless broadband access throughout the city of San Fran along with Internet service provider rthLink. Large telecommuniions companies such as Comcast and Verizon opposed such efforts, claiming it was "unfair competition" and that cities would be violating their commitments to offer local monopolies to these companies. In his testimony before Congress on network neutralityin 2006, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf blamed such tactics on the fact that nrly half of all consumers lack mningful choice in broadband providers.[173] Google currently offers free wi-fi access in its hometown of Mountain View, California.[174]
In 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project with plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.[175] On March 30, 2011, Google announced that Kansas City, Kansas would be the first community where the new network would be deployed.[176] In July 2012, Google completed the construction of a fiber-optic broadband internet network infrastructure in Kansas City, and after building an infrastructure, Google announced pricing for Google Fiber. The service will offer three options including a free broadband internet option, a 1Gbit/s internet option for $70 per month and a version that includes television service for $120 per month.[14]
In 2007, reports surfaced that Google was planning the relse of its own mobile phone, possibly a competitor to 's iPhone.[177][178][179] The project, called Android, turned out not to be a phone but an operating system for mobile devices, which Google acquired and then relsed as an open source project under the Apache 2.0 .[180] Google provides a software development kit for developers so appliions can be crted to be run on Android-based . In September 2008, T-Mobile relsed the G1, the first Android-based phone.[181] More than a yr later on January 5, 2010, Google relsed an Android phone under its own company name called the One.[182]
Other projects Google has worked on include a new collaborative communiion service, a web browser, and even a mobile operating system. The first of these was first announced on May 27, 2009. Google Wave was described as a product that helps users communie and collaborate on the web. The service is Google's "email redesigned", with rltime editing, the ability to embed audio, , and other media, and extensions that further enhance the communiion experience. Google Wave was previously in a developer's preview, where interested users had to be invited to test the service, but was relsed to the eral public on May 19, 2010, at Google's I/O note. On September 1, 2008, Google pre-announced the upcoming availability of Google Chrome, an open source web browser,[183] which was then relsed on September 2, 2008. The next yr, on July 7, 2009, Google announced Google Chrome OS, an open source Linux-basedoperating system that includes only a web browser and is designed to log users into their Google account.[184][185]
Google Goggles is a mobile appliion available on Android and iOS used for recognition and non-text-based srch. In addition to scanning QR , the app can recognize historic landmarks, import business cards, and solve Sudoku puzzles.[186] While Goggles could originally identify people as well, Google has limited that functionality as a privacy protection.[187]
In 2011, Google announced that it will unveil Google Wallet, a mobile appliion for wireless payments.[188]
In late June 2011, Google soft-launched a social networking service called Google+.[189] On July 14, 2011, Google announced that Google+ had rched 10 million users just two weeks after it was launched in this "limited" trial phase.[190] After four weeks in operation, it had rched 25 million users.[191]
Corporate affairs and culture



Then-CEO, now Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt with Sergey Brinand Larry Page (left to right) in 2008.
Google is known for having an informal corporate culture. On Fortune magazine's list of best companies to work for, Google ranked first in 2007, 2008 and 2012[192][193][194] and fourth in 2009 and 2010.[195][196] Google was also nominated in 2010 to be the world's most attractive employer to graduating students in the Universum Communiions talent attraction index.[197] Google's corporate philosophy embodies such casual principles as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."[198]
Employees



Eric Schmidt
Google's stock performance following its initial public offering has enabled many rly employees to be competitively compensated.[199] After the company's IPO, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt requested that their base salary be cut to $1. Subsequent offers by the company to incrse their salaries have been turned down, primarily because their main compensation continues to come from owning stock in Google. Before 2004, Schmidt was making $250,000 per yr, and Page and Brin ch rned a salary of $150,000.[200]
In 2007 and through rly 2008, several top executives left Google. In October 2007, former chief financial r of YouTube Gideon Yu joined Facebook[201] along with Benjamin Ling, a high-ranking engineer.[202] In March 2008, Sheryl Sandberg, then vice-president of global online sales and operations, began her position as chief operating r of Facebook[203] while Ash ElDifrawi, formerly hd of brand advertising, left to become chief marketing r of Netshops, an online retail company that was renamed Hayneedle in 2009.[204] On April 4, 2011 Larry Page became CEO and Eric Schmidt became Executive Chairman of Google.[205] In July 2012, Google's first female employee, Marissa Mayer left Google to become Yahoo's CEO.[206]



New employees are called "Nooglers," and are given a propeller bnie cap to wr on their first Friday.[207]
As a motivation technique, Google uses a policy often called Innovation Time Off, where Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endvors.[208] In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Srch Products and User Experience until July 2012, showed that half of all new product launches at the time had originated from the Innovation Time Off.[209]
In March 2011, consulting firm Universum relsed data that Google ranks first on the list of idl employers by nrly 25percent chosen from more than 10,000 young professionals asked.[210] Fortune magazine ranked Google as one on its 100 Best Companies To Work For list for 2012.[211]
Googleplex
Main article: Googleplex



The Googleplex, Google's original and largest corporate campus



Google Mountain View campus garden



Google Mountain View dinosaur 'Stan'
Google's hdquarters in Mountain View, California is referred to as "the Googleplex", a play on words on the googolplexand the hdquarters itself being a complexof buildings. The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of srch queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. ch employee has access to the corporate recrtion center. Recrtional amenities are stered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted games, table football, a baby grand piano, a billiard table, and ping pong. In addition to the rec room, there are snack rooms stocked with various foods and drinks, with special emphasis placed on nutrition.[212] Free food is available to employees 24/7, with paid vending machines prorated favoring nutritional value.[213]
In 2006, Google moved into 311,000 square feet (28,900m2) of space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.[214] The was specially designed and built for Google, and it now houses its largest advertising sales tm, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships.[214] In 2003, they added an engineering staff in New York City, which has been responsible for more than 100 engineering projects, including Google Maps, Google Sprdsheets, and others. It is estimated that the building costs Google $10million per yr to rent and is similar in design and functionality to its Mountain View hdquarters, including table football, air hoc, and ping-pong tables, as well as a game ar. In November 2006, Google opened s on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh, focusing on shopping related advertisement coding and smartphone appliions and programs.[215][216] By late 2006, Google also established a new hdquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[217] Furthermore, Google has s all around the world, and in the United States, including Ann Arbor, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York City; San Fran, California; Sttle, Washington; Reston, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.



Google's NYC building houses its largest advertising sales tm.[214]
Google is taking steps to ensure that its operations are environmentally sound. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.[218] The system will be the largest solar power system constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world.[218] In addition, Google announced in 2009 that it was deploying herds of goats to keep grassland around the Googleplex short, helping to prevent the thrt from ssonal bush fires while also reducing the carbon footprint of mowing the extensive grounds.[219][220] The id of trimming lawns using goats originated from R. J. Widlar, an engineer who worked for National Semiconductor.[221] Despite this, Google has faced accusations in Harper's Magazine of being an "energy glutton", and was accused of employing its "Don't be evil" motto as well as its very public energy-saving campaigns as an attempt to cover up or make up for the massive amounts of energy its servers actually require.[222]
ster eggs and April Fools' Day jokes
Main article: List of Google's hoaxes and ster eggs
Google has a tradition of crting April Fools' Dayjokes. For example, Google MentalPlexallegedly ftured the use of mental power to srch the web.[223] In 2007, Google announced a free Internet service called TiSP, or Toilet Internet Service Provider, where one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-opticcable down their toilet.[224] Also in 2007, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, allowing users to have email messages printed and shipped to them.[225] In 2008 Google announced Gmail Custom time where users could change the time that the email was sent.[226] In 2010, Google jokingly changed its company name to Topeka in of Topeka, Kansas, whose mayor actually changed the city's name to Google for a short amount of time in an attempt to sway Google's decision in its new Google Fiber Project.[227][228] In 2011, Google announced Gmail Motion, an interactive way of controlling Gmail and the computer with body movements via the user's webcam.[229]
In addition to April Fools' Day jokes, Google's services contain a of ster eggs. For instance, Google included the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, "" or leetspk, Elmer Fudd, Pirate, and Klingon as language selections for its srch engine.[230] In addition, the srch engine calculator provides the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[231] Furthermore, when srching the word "recursion", the spell-checker's result for the properly spelled word is exactly the same word, crting a recursive link.[232] Likewise, when srching for the word "anagram," mning a rrrangement of letters from one word to form other valid words, Google's suggestion fture displays "Did you mn: nag a ram?"[233] In Google Maps, srching for directions between places separated by large bodies of water, such as Los Angeles and Tokyo, results in instructions to "kayak across the Pacific Ocn." During FIFA World Cup 2010, srch queries like "World Cup", "FIFA", etc. caused the "Goooo...gle" page indior at the bottom of every result page to rd "Goooo...al!" instd.[234] Typing in 'Do a barrel roll' in the srch engine will make the page do a 360° rotation.
Philanthropy
Main article: Google.org
In 2004, Google formed the not-for-profit philanthropic Google.org, with a start-up fund of $1billion.[235] The mission of the organization is to crte awareness about climate change, global public hlth, and global poverty. One of its first projects was to develop a viable plug-in hybridelectric vehiclethat can attain 100 miles per gallon. Google hired Dr. Larry Brilliant as the program's executive director in 2004[236] and the current director is Megan Smith.[237]
In 2008 Google announced its "project 10100" which accepted ids for how to help the community and then allowed Google users to vote on their favorites.[238] After two yrs of silence, during which many wondered what had happened to the program,[239] Google revled the winners of the project, giving a total of ten million dollars to various ids ranging from non-profit organizations that promote eduion to a website that intends to make all legal documents public and online.[240]
In 2011, Google donated 1million euros to International Mathematical Olympiad to support the next five annual International Mathematical Olympiads (2011–2015).[241] On July 2012, Google launched a "Legalize Love" campaign in support of gay rights worldwide.[242]
Tax avoidance
Google uses various tax avoidance strategies. Consequently, out of the five largest American technology companies it pays the lowest taxes to the countries of origin of its revenues. This is accomplished partly by licensing technology through subsidiariesin Ireland, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Netherlands.[243] This has reportedly sparked a French investigation into Google's transfer pricingpractices.[244]
Following criticism of the amount of corporate taxes that Google paid in the United Kingdom, Chairman Eric Schmidt said, "It's called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic." During the same December 2012 interview Schmidt "confirmed that the company had no intention of paying more to the UK exchequer."[245]
Network neutrality
Google is a noted supporter of network neutrality. According to Google's Guide to Net Neutrality:
Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what appliions they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its rliest days... Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing appliions or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.
—[246]
On February 7, 2006, Vint Cerf, a co-inventor of the Internet Protocol (IP), and current Vice President and "Chief Internet Evangelist" at Google, in testimony before Congress, said, "allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success."[247]

From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google>