Facts to know about Google on its 21st birthday
codecoda.com
codecoda.com
22. Google tracks your visits, one way or another, on over half the pages you visit on the internet!
23. Google introduced Takeout in 2011, a handy service with which users can view the many terabytes of personal data Google collected about them. Try it! See if you can find the search you made for "Vagisil" in 2012!
24. Google was so successful, it broke itself up! Under the name "Alphabet", and with its own OS, browser, search engine, webmail, DNS, cloud storage, office suite, and control of all the web's videos, Google made Microsoft's monopoly look like a monop-o-lite!
25. Google tracks all sorts of useful information from your email! Did you know they track your purchases? Convenient! Don't worry, though... it's not a person snooping on you, it's a harmless program.
26. Google once developed military robots. It's not as scary it sounds! They sold the company before any actual killing started.
27. Google wants to make the web faster! How? By hosting the web itself. It's called AMP. The Verge says this means Google has become the web's 'nefarious puppet master'. Wow, what drama queens!
Ugh. There's so many more, but I'm not having fun any longer.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4125382/google-pentagon-ai-projec...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
> The Google search engine was also planning to alter the accuracy of the weather and air quality index that would be provided to the consumers in China. The change in information would downplay the actual air pollution to keep the citizens in China less informed about the actual quality of their air.
Oh, they also conspired with Apple, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and eBay to steal billions in wages from their staff. They tried to settle the suit for $324M, but the judge threw that out as being too hilariously low considering the amount of wages stolen in the scheme, estimated at $3B+ USD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
By the way, after a new French against tax fraud law was created, https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000037518803/, Google was asked about 1 billion euros as a fine from the French state. It was later canceled. So as far as I know, Google doesn't break any obvious French law about tax fraud, but is pretty good at tax evasion.
I have no clues about other countries.
Is tax evasion moral and the good thing to do? Personally, I think it's evil.
This is not true. Tax Evasion is an illegal activity.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taxevasion.asp
I believe the term you want is "Tax Avoidance". The terms, although similar, have very different meanings. However, if a company is merely engaging in Tax Avoidance, the state can't force them to pay taxes.
I definitely understand the point you're making, but terminology is important in regards to legality. For better or worse, if Google is in compliance with the law, then the onus is on the legislature to fix whatever loophole they may be using to conduct tax avoidance.
Some places have light touch regulation where courts are used as a measure of last resort, and only for the most flagrant offenders, and so you don't get those case law precedents.
Tax avoidance covers a wide range of activity. At one end you have the perfectly normal and accepted tax planning. But at the other you have companies doing weird things with tax law, and we don't know if that's illegal or not until it goes through the courts. Some of the companies we're talking about have huge amounts of money available to fight court cases which is another reason why countries are reluctant to take cases through the courts.