Even outside Google, the halo effect is insane. Look at how much hate companies like Facebook and Uber get on HN. But if you break down the scandals side by side, you'll realize Google has by far the worst ethics in the industry.
For example, Uber is accused of being sexist because a woman wrote an open letter that she was excluded in various ways as an employee there, such as not receiving swag in her size as the only woman on the team. That sounds like a shitty culture. Meanwhile, Vic Gundotra was credibly accused of inviting 22 year old junior SWEs to exec offsites to sexually harass them. Andy Rubin was found to have sexually assaulted a subordinate, according to Google's own investigation, and recieved a 90M payout.
What's a worse workplace for women? Not getting swag in your size, or being raped?
Yet when I worked at Google when all these scandals took place, ordering an Uber was a huge faux paus. You had to order a Lyft because "Uber=sexist."
Even now on a recent thread I mentioned how all these tech companies are more evil than your typical crypto startup, people said "only Uber and Facebook" look bad on a resume. I would argue that's purely a function of PR because I challenge anyone to debate me that Facebook or Uber had worse ethics scandals than Google.
Google has one of the strongest PR machines of all time and its effect on sentiment inside and outside the company is indisputable.