The Register recounts Google's evil deeds

Nothing like a little British hyperbole to give us some perspective.

The Register says that "Google is the new Microsoft of the decade"

And here be the thinking, mateys.

The Background: "In the 1990s, Microsoft sullied the good name that it had started building in the 1970s by forcing OEMs to ship IE to kill Netscape..."

Oops. The Reg needs some older reporters. People with a memory going back further than 1996. Long before Netscape was even born, Microsoft killed off a whole industry of software companies -- Lotus, Borland, Software Publishing, Digital Research. It was supposedly tying products to its OS in the early 1990s and forcing PC makers to install that OS on ALL their machines or pay higher prices. The Justice Dept. and FTC went after Microsoft, but by the time they got around to doing anything the other companies were dead and newly-launched Netscape was the only company to defend. Well, young reporters are cheaper.

Google Evil #1. It now has its own Domain name Service, another "part of its ongoing effort to control just about everything you do on the net..

Uh, how does helping you register domain names "control" what you do? "No, we don't want you to use that domain name. Take this one instead." ? Yes, it give Da Google more info about you, but we'll deal with that in a sec.

Evil #2. Google tweaks its search algorithms, making it "a choke point for the majority of online ad dollars and traffic."

True. Da Google tweaks. But it's a non-government corporation. Nobody is forced to use it., and there is no evidence that Google is malicious or in any way tweaks the engine to its own advantage. In fact, if there were such evidence, people would flee Da Google faster than you can say "Let's switch to Bing!" We're sure Microsoft would be more honest and less self-serving than Google.

Evil#3. Google delivered Mozilla a "slap in the face by creating a competing browser.

Well, we all know it's evil for any CORPORATION to build its own browser out of an open source system when there's already another browser out there based on the same open source. DAMN evil.

Evil #4. We all know this one. Violates our privacy, doesn't care about user concerns, we just shouldn't be evil if we don't want Google to find anything bad about us, collecting data so it can "sell us more ads."

Sorry. You have no privacy any more, with or without Google. Google does more to safeguard the info it collects on us than any company in the universe. It was the only one resisting Bush-era subpoenas when Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo just caved. And it doesn't sell US ads with the data it collects about US. It sells ads to advertisers and gives us those that might interest US, without telling the advertisers anything about US. Why do you think people actually click on Google ads? I actually find Google's ads helpful (Ack! Don't hit me!) If Google were to disappear, our privacy would completely disappear. Again, if you don't like Google, go to Bing.

Come on, folks! You can do better than that! Give me some REAL examples of evil Google. I'll send you a really cool book! Free! Autographed! A Publisher's Weekly starred "must read!"