Green nanotechnology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Green nanotechnology refers to the use of nanotechnology to enhance the environmental sustainability of processes producing negative externalities. It also refers to the use of the products of nanotechnology to enhance sustainability. It includes making green nano-products and using nano-products in support of sustainability.

Green nanotechnology has been described as the development of clean technologies, "to minimize potential environmental and human health risks associated with the manufacture and use of nanotechnology products, and to encourage replacement of existing products with new nano-products that are more environmentally friendly throughout their lifecycle."^[1]

Goals

Green nanotechnology has two goals: producing nanomaterials and products without harming the environment or human health, and producing nano-products that provide solutions to environmental problems. It uses existing principles of green chemistry and green engineering^[2] to make nanomaterials and nano-products without toxic ingredients, at low temperatures using less energy and renewable inputs wherever possible, and using lifecycle thinking in all design and engineering stages.

In addition to making nanomaterials and products with less impact to the environment, green nanotechnology also means using nanotechnology to make current manufacturing processes for non-nano materials and products more environmentally friendly. For example, nanoscale membranes can help separate desired chemical reaction products from waste materials. Nanoscale catalysts can make chemical reactions more efficient and less wasteful. Sensors at the nanoscale can form a part of process control systems, working with nano-enabled information systems. Using alternative energy systems, made possible by nanotechnology, is another way to "green" manufacturing processes.

The second goal of green nanotechnology involves developing products that benefit the environment either directly or indirectly. Nanomaterials or products directly can clean hazardous waste sites, desalinate water, treat pollutants, or sense and monitor environmental pollutants. Indirectly, lightweight nanocomposites for automobiles and other means of transportation could save fuel and reduce materials used for production; nanotechnology-enabled fuel cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) could reduce pollution from energy generation and help conserve fossil fuels; self-cleaning nanoscale surface coatings could reduce or eliminate many cleaning chemicals used in regular maintenance routines;^[3] and enhanced battery life could lead to less material use and less waste. Green Nanotechnology takes a broad systems view of nanomaterials and products, ensuring that unforeseen consequences are minimized and that impacts are anticipated throughout the full life cycle.^[4]

Current research

Solar cells

Research is underway to use nanomaterials for purposes including more efficient solar cells, practical fuel cells, and environmentally friendly batteries. The most advanced nanotechnology projects related to energy are: storage, conversion, manufacturing improvements by reducing materials and process rates, energy saving (by better thermal insulation for example), and enhanced renewable energy sources.
One major project that is being worked on is the development of nanotechnology in solar cells.^[5] Solar cells are more efficient as they get tinier and solar energy is a renewable resource. The price per watt of solar energy is lower than one dollar.

Research is ongoing to use nanowires and other nanostructured materials with the hope of to create cheaper and more efficient solar cells than are possible with conventional planar silicon solar cells.^[6][7] Another example is the use of fuel cells powered by hydrogen, potentially using a catalyst consisting of carbon supported noble metal particles with diameters of 1–5 nm. Materials with small nanosized pores may be suitable for hydrogen storage. Nanotechnology may also find applications in batteries, where the use of nanomaterials may enable batteries with higher energy content or supercapacitors with a higher rate of recharging.^{[citation needed]}

Nanotechnology is already used to provide improved performance coatings for photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal panels. Hydrophobic and self-cleaning properties combine to create more efficient solar panels, especially during inclement weather. PV covered with nanotechnology coatings are said to stay cleaner for longer to ensure maximum energy efficiency is maintained.^[8]

Nanoremediation and water treatment

Nanotechnology offers the potential of novel nanomaterials for the treatment of surface water, groundwater, wastewater, and other environmental materials contaminated by toxic metal ions, organic and inorganic solutes, and microorganisms. Due to their unique activity toward recalcitrant contaminants, many nanomaterials are under active research and development for use in the treatment of water and contaminated sites.^[9][10]

The present market of nanotech-based technologies applied in water treatment consists of reverse osmosis(RO), nanofiltration, ultrafiltration membranes. Indeed, among emerging products one can name nanofiber filters, carbon nanotubes and various nanoparticles.^[11] Nanotechnology is expected to deal more efficiently with contaminants which convectional water treatment systems struggle to treat, including bacteria, viruses and heavy metals. This efficiency generally stems from the very high specific surface area of nanomaterials which increases dissolution, reactivity and sorption of contaminants.^[12][13]

Environmental remediation

Nanoremediation is the use of nanoparticles for environmental remediation.^[14][15] Nanoremediation has been most widely used for groundwater treatment, with additional extensive research in wastewater treatment.^{[16][17][18][19]} Nanoremediation has also been tested for soil and sediment cleanup.^[20] Even more preliminary research is exploring the use of nanoparticles to remove toxic materials from gases.^[21]

Some nanoremediation methods, particularly the use of nano zerovalent iron for groundwater cleanup, have been deployed at full-scale cleanup sites.^[15] Nanoremediation is an emerging industry; by 2009, nanoremediation technologies had been documented in at least 44 cleanup sites around the world, predominantly in the United States.^[16][22][23] During nanoremediation, a nanoparticle agent must be brought into contact with the target contaminant under conditions that allow a detoxifying or immobilizing reaction. This process typically involves a pump-and-treat process or in situ application. Other methods remain in research phases.

Scientists have been researching the capabilities of buckminsterfullerene in controlling pollution, as it may be able to control certain chemical reactions. Buckminsterfullerene has been demonstrated as having the ability of inducing the protection of reactive oxygen species and causing lipid peroxidation. This material may allow for hydrogen fuel to be more accessible to consumers.

Water cleaning technology

In 2017 the RingwooditE Co Ltd was formed in order to explore Thermonuclear Trap Technology (TTT) for the purpose of cleaning all sources of water from pollution and toxic contents. This patented nanotechnology uses a high pressure and temperature chamber to separate isotopes that should by nature not be in drinking water to pure drinking water, as to the by the WHO´s established classification. This method has been developed by among others, by professor Vladimir Afanasiew, at the Moscow Nuclear Institution. This technology is targeted to clean Sea, river, lake and landfill waste waters. It even removes radioactive isotopes from the sea water, after Nuclear Power Stations catastrophes and cooling water plant towers. By this technology pharmaca rests are being removed as well as narcotics and tranquilizers. Bottom layers and sides at lake and rivers can be returned, after being cleaned. Machinery used for this purpose are much similar to those of deep sea mining. Removed waste items are being sorted by the process, and can be re used as raw material for other industrial production.

Water filtration

Nanofiltration is a relatively recent membrane filtration process used most often with low total dissolved solids water such as surface water and fresh groundwater, with the purpose of softening (polyvalent cation removal) and removal of disinfection by-product precursors such as natural organic matter and synthetic organic matter.^[24][25] Nanofiltration is also becoming more widely used in food processing applications such as dairy, for simultaneous concentration and partial (monovalent ion) demineralisation.

Nanofiltration is a membrane filtration based method that uses nanometer sized cylindrical through-pores that pass through the membrane at a 90°. Nanofiltration membranes have pore sizes from 1-10 Angstrom, smaller than that used in microfiltration and ultrafiltration, but just larger than that in reverse osmosis. Membranes used are predominantly created from polymer thin films. Materials that are commonly used include polyethylene terephthalate or metals such as aluminum.^[26] Pore dimensions are controlled by pH, temperature and time during development with pore densities ranging from 1 to 106 pores per cm². Membranes made from polyethylene terephthalate and other similar materials, are referred to as "track-etch" membranes, named after the way the pores on the membranes are made.^[27] "Tracking" involves bombarding the polymer thin film with high energy particles. This results in making tracks that are chemically developed into the membrane, or "etched" into the membrane, which are the pores. Membranes created from metal such as alumina membranes, are made by electrochemically growing a thin layer of aluminum oxide from aluminum metal in an acidic medium.

Some water-treatment devices incorporating nanotechnology are already on the market, with more in development. Low-cost nanostructured separation membranes methods have been shown to be effective in producing potable water in a recent study.^[28]

Nanotech to disinfect water

Nanotechnology provides an alternative solution to clean germs in water, a problem that has been getting worse due to the population explosion, growing need for clean water and emergence of additional pollutants. One of the alternatives offered is antimicrobial nanotechnology stated that several nanomaterials showed strong antimicrobial properties through diverse mechanisms, such as photocatalytic production of reactive oxygen species that damage cell components and viruses.^[29]

Cleaning up oil spills

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents more than ten thousand oil spills per year. Conventionally, biological, dispersing, and gelling agents are deployed to remedy oil spills. Although, these methods have been used for decades, none of these techniques can retrieve the irreplaceable lost oil. However, nanowires can not only swiftly clean up oil spills but also recover as much oil as possible. These nanowires form a mesh that absorbs up to twenty times its weight in hydrophobic liquids while rejecting water with its water repelling coating. Since the potassium manganese oxide is very stable even at high temperatures, the oil can be boiled off the nanowires and both the oil and the nanowires can then be reused.^[30]

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed more than thirty oil platforms and nine refineries. The Interface Science Corporation successfully launched a new oil remediation and recovery application, which used the water repelling nanowires to clean up the oil spilled by the damaged oil platforms and refineries.^[31]

Removing plastics from oceans

One innovation of green nanotechnology that is currently under development are nanomachines modeled after a bacteria bioengineered to consume plastics, Ideonella sakaiensis. These nano-machines are able to decompose plastics dozens of times faster than the bioengineered bacteria not only because of their increased surface area but also because of the fact that the energy released from decomposing the plastic is used to fuel the nano-machines.^[32]

Air pollution control

In addition to water treatment and environmental remediation, nanotechnology is currently improving air quality. Nanoparticles can be engineered to catalyze, or hasten, the reaction to transform environmentally pernicious gases into harmless ones. For example, many industrial factories that produce large amounts harmful gases employ a type of nanofiber catalyst made of magnesium oxide (Mg₂O) to purify dangerous organic substances in the smoke. Although chemical catalysts already exist in the gaseous vapors from cars, nanotechnology has a greater chance of reacting with the harmful substances in the vapors. This greater probability comes from the fact that nanotechnology can interact with more particles because of its greater surface area.^[33]

Additionally, research is currently being conducted to find out if nanoparticles can be engineered to separate car exhaust from methane or carbon dioxide,^[33] which has been known to damage the Earth's ozone layer. In fact, John Zhu, a professor at the University of Queensland, is exploring the creation of a carbon nanotube(CNT) which can trap greenhouse gases hundreds of times more efficiently than current methods can.^[34]

Nanotechnology for sensors

Perpetual exposure to heavy metal pollution and particulate matter will lead to health concerns such as lung cancer, heart conditions, and even motor neuron diseases. However, humanity's ability to shield themselves from these health problems can be improved by accurate and swift nanocontact-sensors able to detect pollutants at the atomic level. These nanocontact sensors do not require much energy to detect metal ions or radioactive elements. Additionally, they can be made in automatic mode so that they can be readably used at any given moment. Additionally, these nanocontact sensors are energy and cost effective since they are composed with conventional microelectronic manufacturing equipment using electrochemical techniques.^[30]

Some examples of nano-based monitoring include:

1. Functionalized nanoparticles able to form anionic oxidants bonding thereby allowing the detection of carcinogenic substances at very low concentrations.^[33]
2. Polymer nanospheres have been developed to measure organic contaminates in very low concentrations
3. "Peptide nanoelectrodes have been employed based on the concept of thermocouple. In a 'nano-distance separation gap, a peptide molecule is placed to form a molecular junction. When a specific metal ion is bound to the gap; the electrical current will result conductance in a unique value. Hence the metal ion will be easily detected."^[34]
4. Composite electrodes, a mixture of nanotubes and copper, have been created to detect substances such as organophosphorus pesticides, carbohydrates and other woods pathogenic substances in low concentrations.

Concerns

Although green nanotechnology poses many advantages over traditional methods, there is still much debate about the concerns brought about by nanotechnology. For example, since the nanoparticles are small enough to be absorbed into skin and/or inhaled, countries are mandating that additional research revolving around the impact of nanotechnology on organisms be heavily studied. In fact, the field of eco-nanotoxicology was founded solely to study the effect of nanotechnology on earth and all of its organisms. At the moment, scientists are unsure of what will happen when nanoparticles seep into soil and water, but organizations, such as NanoImpactNet, have set out to study these effects.^[33]

Gaia philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gaia philosophy (named after Gaia, Greek goddess of the Earth) is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for life. This set of theories holds that all organisms on a life-giving planet regulate the biosphere in such a way as to promote its habitability. Gaia concept draws a connection between the survivability of a species (hence its evolutionary course) and its usefulness to the survival of other species.

While there were a number of precursors to Gaia theory, the first scientific form of this idea was proposed as the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, a UK chemist, in 1970. The Gaia hypothesis deals with the concept of Biological homeostasis, and claims the resident life forms of a host planet coupled with their environment have acted and act like a single, self-regulating system. This system includes the near-surface rocks, the soil, and the atmosphere. Today many scientists consider such ideas to be unsupported by, or at odds with, the available evidence (see recent criticism). These theories are however significant in green politics.

Predecessors to the Gaia theory

There are some mystical, scientific and religious predecessors to the Gaia philosophy, which had a Gaia-like conceptual basis. Many religious mythologies had a view of Earth as being a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts (e.g. some Native American religions and various forms of shamanism).

Lewis Thomas believed that Earth should be viewed as a single cell; he derived this view from Johannes Kepler's view of Earth as a single round organism.

Isaac Newton wrote of the earth, "Thus this Earth resembles a great animall or rather inanimate vegetable, draws in æthereall breath for its dayly refreshment & vitall ferment & transpires again with gross exhalations, And according to the condition of all other things living ought to have its times of beginning youth old age & perishing."^[1]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and geologist, believed that evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and ultimately the whole universe, as we humans see it from our limited perspective. Teilhard later influenced Thomas Berry and many Catholic humanist thinkers of the 20th century.

Buckminster Fuller is generally credited with making the idea respectable in Western scientific circles in the 20th century. Building to some degree on his observations and artifacts, e.g. the Dymaxion map of the Earth he created, others began to ask if there was a way to make the Gaia theory scientifically sound.

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart in 1970 in an article in Green Egg Magazine, independently articulated the Gaia Thesis.^[2]

None of these ideas are considered scientific hypotheses; by definition a scientific hypothesis must make testable predictions. As the above claims are not testable, they are outside the bounds of current science.

These are conjectures and perhaps can only be considered as social and maybe political philosophy; they may have implications for theology, or thealogy as Zell-Ravenheart and Isaac Bonewits put it.

Range of views

According to James Kirchner there is a spectrum of Gaia hypotheses, ranging from the undeniable to radical. At one end is the undeniable statement that the organisms on the Earth have radically altered its composition. A stronger position is that the Earth's biosphere effectively acts as if it is a self-organizing system which works in such a way as to keep its systems in some kind of equilibrium that is conducive to life. Today many scientists consider that such a view (and any stronger views) are unlikely to be correct.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} An even stronger claim is that all lifeforms are part of a single planetary being, called Gaia. In this view, the atmosphere, the seas, the terrestrial crust would be the result of interventions carried out by Gaia, through the coevolving diversity of living organisms.

The most extreme form of Gaia theory is that the entire Earth is a single unified organism with a highly intelligent mind that arose as an emergent property of the whole biosphere. In this view, the Earth's biosphere is consciously manipulating the climate in order to make conditions more conducive to life. Scientists contend that there is no evidence at all to support this last point of view, and it has come about because many people do not understand the concept of homeostasis. Many non-scientists instinctively and incorrectly see homeostasis as a process that requires conscious control.

The more speculative versions of Gaia, including versions in which it is believed that the Earth is actually conscious, sentient, and highly intelligent, are usually considered outside the bounds of what is usually considered science.

Gaia in biology and science

Buckminster Fuller has been credited as the first to incorporate scientific ideas into a Gaia theory, which he did with his Dymaxion map of the Earth.
The first scientifically rigorous theory was the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, a UK chemist.

A variant of this hypothesis was developed by Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist, in 1979. Her version is sometimes called the "Gaia Theory" (note uppercase-T). Her model is more limited in scope than the one that Lovelock proposed.

Whether this sort of system is present on Earth is still open to debate. Some relatively simple homeostatic mechanisms are generally accepted. For example, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, plants are able to grow better and thus remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Other biological effects and feedbacks exist,^[7] but the extent to which these mechanisms have stabilized and modified the Earth's overall climate is largely not known.

The Gaia hypothesis is sometimes viewed from significantly different philosophical perspectives. Some environmentalists view it as an almost conscious process, in which the Earth's ecosystem is literally viewed as a single unified organism. Some evolutionary biologists, on the other hand, view it as an undirected emergent property of the ecosystem: as each individual species pursues its own self-interest, their combined actions tend to have counterbalancing effects on environmental change. Proponents of this view sometimes point to examples of life's actions in the past that have resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium, such as the conversion of the Earth's atmosphere from a reducing environment to an oxygen-rich one.

Depending on how strongly the case is stated, the hypothesis conflicts with mainstream neo-Darwinism. Most biologists would accept Daisyworld-style homeostasis as possible, but would certainly not accept the idea that this equates to the whole biosphere acting as one organism.

A very small number of scientists, and a much larger number of environmental activists, claim that Earth's biosphere is consciously manipulating the climate in order to make conditions more conducive to life. Scientists contend that there is no evidence to support this belief.

Gaia in the social sciences

A social science view of Gaia theory is the role of humans as a keystone species who may be able to accomplish global homeostasis. Whilst a few social scientists who draw inspiration from 'organic' views of society have embraced Gaia philosophy as a way to explain the human-nature interconnections, most professional social scientists are more involved in reflecting upon the way Gaia philosophy is used and engaged with within sub-sections of society. Alan Marshall, in the Department of Social Sciences at Mahidol University, for example, reflects upon the way Gaia philosophy has been used and advocated by environmentalists, spiritualists, managers, economists, and scientists and engineers (see The Unity of Nature, 2002, Imperial College Press: London and Singapore). Social Scientists themselves in the 1960s gave up on systems ideas of society since they were interpreted as supporting conservatism and traditionalism.

Gaia in politics

Some radical political environmentalists who accept some form of the Gaia theory call themselves Gaians. They actively seek to restore the Earth's homeostasis — whenever they see it out of balance, e.g. to prevent manmade climate change, primate extinction, or rainforest loss. In effect, they seek to cooperate to become the "system consciously manipulating to make conditions more conducive to life". Such activity defines the homeostasis, but for leverage it relies on deep investigation of the homeorhetic balances, if only to find places to intervene in a system which is changing in undesirable ways.

Tony Bondhus brings up the point in his book, Society of Conceivia, that if Gaia is alive, then societies are living things as well. This suggests that our understanding of Gaia can be used to create a better society and to design a better political system.

Other intellectuals in the environmental movement, like Edward Goldsmith, have used Gaia in the completely opposite way; to stake a claim about how Gaia's focus on natural balance and resistance and resilience, should be emulated to design a conservative political system (as explored in Alan Marshall's 2002 book The Unity of Nature, (Imperial College Press: London).

Gaians do not passively ask "what is going on", but rather, "what to do next", e.g. in terraforming or climate engineering or even on a small scale, such as gardening. Changes can be planned, agreed upon by many people, being very deliberate, as in urban ecology and especially industrial ecology.

Gaians argue that it is a human duty to act as such - committing themselves in particular to the Precautionary Principle. Such views began to influence the Green Parties, Greenpeace, and a few more radical wings of the environmental movement such as the Gaia Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. These views dominate some such groups, e.g. the Bioneers. Some refer to this political activity as a separate and radical branch of the ecology movement, one that takes the axioms of the science of ecology in general, and Gaia theory in particular, and raises them to a kind of theory of personal conduct or moral code.

Gaia in religion

The ecologist and theologian Anne Primavesi is the author of two books dealing with the Gaia hypothesis and theology.^[8]

Rosemary Radford Ruether, the American feminist scholar and theologian, wrote a book called "Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing".

A book edited by Allan Hunt Badiner called Dharma Gaia explores the ground where Buddhism and ecology meet through writings by the Dalai Lama, Gary Snyder, Thich Nhat Hanh, Allen Ginsberg, Joanna Macy, Robert Aitken, and 25 other Buddhists and ecologists.^[9]

Many new age authors have written books which mix New Age teachings with Gaia philosophy. This is known as New Age Gaian. Often referred to as Gaianism, or the Gaian Religion, this spiritual aspect of the philosophy is very broad and inclusive, making it adaptable to other religions: Taoism, Neo-Paganism, Pantheism, Judeo-Christian Religions, and many others.

Semantic debate

The question of "what is an organism", and at what scale is it rational to speak about organisms vs. biospheres, gives rise to a semantic debate. We are all ecologies in the sense that our (human) bodies contain gut bacteria, parasite species, etc., and to them our body is not organism but rather more of a microclimate or biome. Applying that thinking to whole planets:

The argument is that these symbiotic organisms, being unable to survive apart from each other and their climate and local conditions, form an organism in their own right, under a wider conception of the term organism than is conventionally used. It is a matter for often heated debate whether this is a valid usage of the term, but ultimately it appears to be a semantic dispute. In this sense of the word organism, it is argued under the theory that the entire biomass of the Earth is a single organism (as Johannes Kepler thought).

Unfortunately, many supporters of the various Gaia theories do not state exactly where they sit on this spectrum; this makes discussion and criticism difficult.

Much effort on behalf of those analyzing the theory currently is an attempt to clarify what these different hypotheses are, and whether they are proposals to 'test' or 'manipulate' outcomes. Both Lovelock's and Margulis's understanding of Gaia are considered scientific hypotheses, and like all scientific theories are constantly put to the test.

More speculative versions of Gaia, including all versions in which it is held that the Earth is actually conscious, are currently held to be outside the bounds of science, and are not supported by either Lovelock or Margulis.

Gaian reproduction

One of the most problematic issues with referring to Gaia as an organism is its apparent failure to meet the biological criterion of being able to reproduce. Richard Dawkins has asserted that the planet is not the offspring of any parents and is unable to reproduce.^[10]

Daisyworld

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plots from a standard black & white DaisyWorld simulation.

Daisyworld, a computer simulation, is a hypothetical world orbiting a star whose radiant energy is slowly increasing or decreasing. It is meant to mimic important elements of the Earth-Sun system, and was introduced by James Lovelock and Andrew Watson in a paper published in 1983^[1] to illustrate the plausibility of the Gaia hypothesis. In the original 1983 version, Daisyworld is seeded with two varieties of daisy as its only life forms: black daisies and white daisies. White petaled daisies reflect light, while black petaled daisies absorb light. The simulation tracks the two daisy populations and the surface temperature of Daisyworld as the sun's rays grow more powerful. The surface temperature of Daisyworld remains almost constant over a broad range of solar output.

Mathematical model to sustain the Gaia hypothesis

The purpose of the model is to demonstrate that feedback mechanisms can evolve from the actions or activities of self-interested organisms, rather than through classic group selection mechanisms.^[2] Daisyworld examines the energy budget of a planet populated by two different types of plants, black daisies and white daisies. The colour of the daisies influences the albedo of the planet such that black daisies absorb light and warm the planet, while white daisies reflect light and cool the planet. Competition between the daisies (based on temperature-effects on growth rates) leads to a balance of populations that tends to favour a planetary temperature close to the optimum for daisy growth.

Lovelock and Watson demonstrated the stability of Daisyworld by making its sun evolve along the main sequence, taking it from low to high solar constant. This perturbation of Daisyworld's receipt of solar radiation caused the balance of daisies to gradually shift from black to white but the planetary temperature was always regulated back to this optimum (except at the extreme ends of solar evolution). This situation is very different from the corresponding abiotic world, where temperature is unregulated and rises linearly with solar output.

Later versions of Daisyworld introduced a range of grey daisies, as well as populations of grazers and predators, and found that these further increased the stability of the homeostasis^{[citation needed]}. More recently, other research, modeling the real biochemical cycles of Earth, and using various types of organisms (e.g. photosynthesisers, decomposers, herbivores and primary and secondary carnivores) has also been shown to produce Daisyworld-like regulation and stability, which helps to explain planetary biological diversity.^{[citation needed]}

This enables nutrient recycling within a regulatory framework derived by natural selection amongst species, where one being's harmful waste becomes low energy food for members of another guild. This research on the Redfield ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus shows that local biotic processes can regulate global systems (See Keith Downing & Peter Zvirinsky, The Simulated Evolution of Biochemical Guilds: Reconciling Gaia Theory with Natural Selection).

Original 1983 simulation synopsis

Play media

A short video about the DaisyWorld model and its implications for real world earth science.

At the beginning of the simulation, the sun's rays are weak and Daisyworld is too cold to support any life. Its surface is barren, and gray. As the luminosity of the sun's rays increases, germination of black daisies becomes possible. Because black daisies absorb more of the sun's radiant energy, they are able to increase their individual temperatures to healthy levels on the still cool surface of Daisyworld. As a result, they thrive and the population soon grows large enough to increase the average surface temperature of Daisyworld.

As the surface heats up, it becomes more habitable for white daisies, whose competing population grows to rival the black daisy population. As the two populations reach equilibrium, so too does the surface temperature of Daisyworld, which settles on a value most comfortable for both populations.

In this first phase of the simulation we see that black daisies have warmed Daisyworld so that it is habitable over a wider range of solar luminosity than would have been possible on a barren, gray planet. This allowed growth of the white daisy population, and the two populations of daisies are now working together to regulate the surface temperature.

The second phase of the simulation documents what happens as the sun's luminosity continues to increase, heating the surface of Daisyworld beyond a comfortable range for the daisies. This temperature increase causes white daisies, who are better able to stay cool because of their high albedo or ability to reflect sunlight, to gain a selective advantage over the black daisies. White daisies begin replacing black daisies, which has a cooling effect on Daisyworld. The result is that Daisyworld's surface temperature remains habitable - in fact almost constant - even as the luminosity of the sun continues to increase.

In the third phase of the simulation, the sun's rays have grown so powerful that soon even the white daisies can no longer survive. At a certain luminosity their population crashes, and the barren, gray surface of Daisyworld, no longer able to reflect the sun's rays, rapidly heats up.

At this point in the simulation solar luminosity is programmed to decline, retracing its original path to its initial value. Even as it declines to levels that previously supported vast populations of daisies in the third phase, no daisies are able to grow because the surface of barren, gray Daisyworld is still far too hot. Eventually, the sun's rays decrease in power to a more comfortable level which allows white daisies to grow, who begin cooling the planet.

Relevance to Earth

Because Daisyworld is so simplistic, having for example, no atmosphere, no animals, only one species of plant life, and only the most basic population growth and death models, it should not be directly compared to Earth. This was stated very clearly by the original authors. Even so, it provided a number of useful predictions of how Earth's biosphere may respond to, for example, human interference. Later adaptations of Daisyworld (discussed below), which added many layers of complexity, still showed the same basic trends of the original model.

One prediction of the simulation is that the biosphere works to regulate the climate, making it habitable over a wide range of solar luminosity. Many examples of these regulatory systems have been found on Earth.

Modifications to the original simulation

Daisyworld was designed to refute the idea that there was something inherently mystical about the Gaia hypothesis that Earth's surface displays homeostatic and homeorhetic properties similar to those of a living organism. Specifically, thermoregulation was addressed. The Gaia hypothesis had attracted a substantial amount of criticism from scientists such as Richard Dawkins,^[3] who argued that planet-level thermoregulation was impossible without planetary natural selection, which might involve evidence of dead planets that did not thermoregulate. Dr. W. Ford Doolittle^[4] rejected the notion of planetary regulation because it seemed to require a "secret consensus" among organisms, thus some sort of inexplicable purpose on a planetary scale. Incidentally, neither of these neoDarwinians made a close examination of the wide-ranging evidence presented in Lovelock's books that was suggestive of planetary regulation, dismissing the theory based on what they saw as its incompatibility with the latest views on the processes by which evolution works. Lovelock's model countered the criticism that some "secret consensus" would be required for planetary regulation by showing how in this model thermoregulation of the planet, beneficial to the two species, arises naturally.^[5]

Later criticism of Daisyworld itself centers around the fact that although it is often used as an analogy for Earth, the original simulations leaves out many important details of the true Earth system. For example, the system requires an ad-hoc death rate (γ) to sustain homeostasis, and it does not take into account the difference between species-level phenomena and individual level phenomena. Detractors of the simulation believed inclusion of these details would cause it to become unstable, and therefore, false. Many of these issues are addressed in a more recent paper by Timothy Lenton and James Lovelock in 2001.^[6] In this paper it is shown that inclusion of these factors actually improves Daisyworld's ability to regulate its climate.

Biodiversity and stability of ecosystems

The importance of the large number of species in an ecosystem, led to two sets of views about the role played by biodiversity in the stability of ecosystems in Gaia theory. In one school of thought labelled the "species redundancy" hypothesis, proposed by Australian ecologist Brian Walker, most species are seen as having little contribution overall in the stability, comparable to the passengers in an aeroplane who play little role in its successful flight. The hypothesis leads to the conclusion that only a few key species are necessary for a healthy ecosystem. The "rivet-popper" hypothesis put forth by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife Anne H. Ehrlich, compares each species forming part of an ecosystem as a rivet on the aeroplane (represented by the ecosystem). The progressive loss of species mirrors the progressive loss of rivets from the plane, weakening it till it is no longer sustainable and crashes.^[7]

Later extensions of the Daisyworld simulation which included rabbits, foxes and other species, led to a surprising finding that the larger the number of species, the greater the improving effects on the entire planet (i.e., the temperature regulation was improved). It also showed that the system was robust and stable even when perturbed. Daisyworld simulations where environmental changes were stable gradually became less diverse over time; in contrast gentle perturbations led to bursts of species richness. These findings lent support to the idea that biodiversity is valuable.^[8]

This finding was supported by an eleven-year-old study of the factors species composition, dynamics and diversity in successional and native grasslands in Minnesota by David Tilman and John A. Downing wherein they discovered that "primary productivity in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to, and recovers more fully from, a major drought". They go on to add "Our results support the diversity stability hypothesis but not the alternative hypothesis that most species are functionally redundant".^[7][9]

Google

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google LLC

Google's logo since 2015
Google's headquarters, the Googleplex, in August 2014
Formerly called	Google Inc. (1998–2017)
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Internet Software Computer hardware
Founded	September 4, 1998; 19 years ago in Menlo Park, California, U.S.[1][2]
Founders	Larry Page Sergey Brin
Headquarters	Googleplex, Mountain View, California, U.S.[3]
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Sundar Pichai (CEO) Ruth Porat (CFO)
Products	List of Google products
Number of employees	85,050[4] (Q1 2018)
Parent	Alphabet Inc. (2015–present)
Subsidiaries	List of subsidiaries
Website	google.com

Google LLC^[5] is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California. Together, they own about 14 percent of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock. They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google moved to its new headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google, Alphabet's leading subsidiary, will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet.

The company's rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine (Google Search). It offers services designed for work and productivity (Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides), email (Gmail/Inbox), scheduling and time management (Google Calendar), cloud storage (Google Drive), social networking (Google+), instant messaging and video chat (Google Allo/Duo/Hangouts), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and turn-by-turn navigation (Google Maps/Waze/Earth/Street View), video sharing (YouTube), note-taking (Google Keep), and photo organizing and editing (Google Photos). The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome browser. Google has moved increasingly into hardware; from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with major electronics manufacturers in the production of its Nexus devices, and in October 2016, it released multiple hardware products (including the Google Pixel smartphone, Home smart speaker, Wifi mesh wireless router, and Daydream View virtual reality headset). The new hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, stated: "a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience". Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier. In February 2010, it announced Google Fiber, a fiber-optic infrastructure that was installed in Kansas City; in April 2015, it launched Project Fi in the United States, combining Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different providers; and in 2016, it announced the Google Station initiative to make public Wi-Fi available around the world, with initial deployment in India.^[6]

Alexa, a company that monitors commercial web traffic, lists Google.com as the most visited website in the world. Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube and Blogger. Google is the most valuable brand in the world as of 2017,^[7] but has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, antitrust, censorship, and search neutrality. Google's mission statement, from the outset, was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and its unofficial slogan was "Don't be evil". In October 2015, the motto was replaced in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase "Do the right thing", while the original one was retained in the code of conduct of Google.^[8] Around May 2018, the slogan was silently removed from the code's clauses, leaving only one generic reference in its last paragraph.^[9]

History

Google's original homepage had a simple design because the company founders had little experience in HTML, the markup language used for designing web pages.^[10]

Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California.^[11]

While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites.^[12] They called this new technology PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site.^[13][14]

Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.^[15][16][17] Eventually, they changed the name to Google; the name of the search engine originated from a misspelling of the word "googol",^[18][19] the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.^[20] Originally, Google ran under Stanford University's website, with the domains google.stanford.edu^[21] and z.stanford.edu.^[22]

The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997,^[23] and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in the garage of a friend (Susan Wojcicki^[11]) in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.^[11][24][25]

Financing (1998) and initial public offering (2004)

Google's first production server.^[26]

Google was initially funded by an August 1998 contribution of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; the money was given before Google was incorporated.^[27] Google received money from three other angel investors in 1998: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton, and entrepreneur Ram Shriram.^[28]

After some additional, small investments through the end of 1998 to early 1999,^[28] a new $25 million round of funding was announced on June 7, 1999,^[29] with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.^[27]

Early in 1999, Brin and Page decided they wanted to sell Google to Excite. They went to Excite CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1 million. He rejected the offer. Vinod Khosla, one of Excite's venture capitalists, talked the duo down to $750,000, but Bell still rejected it.^[30]

Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five years later, on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024.^[31]

At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share.^[32][33] Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal.^[34][35] The sale of $1.67 bn (billion) gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23bn.^[36] By January 2014, its market capitalization had grown to $397bn.^[37] The vast majority of the 271 million shares remained under the control of Google, and many Google employees became instant paper millionaires. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefitted because it owned 8.4 million shares of Google before the IPO took place.^[38]

There were concerns that Google's IPO would lead to changes in company culture. Reasons ranged from shareholder pressure for employee benefit reductions to the fact that many company executives would become instant paper millionaires.^[39] As a reply to this concern, co-founders Brin and Page promised in a report to potential investors that the IPO would not change the company's culture.^[40] In 2005, articles in The New York Times^[41] and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy.^[42][43][44] In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture Officer, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources. The purpose of the Chief Culture Officer 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.^[45] Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees.^[46][47] In 2013, a class action against several Silicon Valley companies, including Google, was filed for alleged "no cold call" agreements which restrained the recruitment of high-tech employees.^[48]

The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $350 for the first time on October 31, 2007,^[49] primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market.^[50] The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds.^[50] GOOG shares split into GOOG class C shares and GOOGL class A shares.^[51] The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbols GOOGL and GOOG, and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1. These ticker symbols now refer to Alphabet Inc., Google's holding company, since the fourth quarter of 2015.^[52]

Growth

In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California,^[53] which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups.^[54] The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine.^[55][11] In order to maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based.^[56]

This model of selling keyword advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross.^[57][58] 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! Search Marketing. The case was then settled out of court; Google agreed to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.^[59]

In 2001, Google received a patent for its PageRank mechanism.^[60] The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.^[61] The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. The Googleplex interiors were designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.^[62] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".^[63][64] The first use of "Google" as a verb in pop culture happened on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in 2002.^[65]

In 2005, The Washington Post reported on a 700 percent increase in third-quarter profit for Google, largely thanks to large companies shifting their advertising strategies from newspapers, magazines, and television to the Internet.^[66] In January 2008, all the data that passed through Google's MapReduce software component had an aggregated size of 20 petabytes per day.^[67][68][69] In 2009, a CNN report about top political searches of 2009 noted that "more than a billion searches" are being typed into Google on a daily basis.^[70] In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time, an 8.4 percent increase from May 2010 (931 million).^[71]

The year 2012 was the first time that Google generated $50 billion in annual revenue, generating $38 billion the previous year. In January 2013, then-CEO Larry Page commented, "We ended 2012 with a strong quarter ... Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."^[72]

2013 onward

Google's logo until 2015

Screenshot of the Google homepage in 2015

Google announced the launch of a new company, called Calico, on September 19, 2013, to be led by Apple, Inc. chairman Arthur Levinson. In the official public statement, Page explained that the "health and well-being" company would focus on "the challenge of ageing and associated diseases".^[73]

Google celebrated its 15-year anniversary on September 27, 2013, and in 2016 it celebrated its 18th birthday with an animated Doodle shown on web browsers around the world.^[74] although it has used other dates for its official birthday.^[75] The reason for the choice of September 27 remains unclear, and a dispute with rival search engine Yahoo! Search in 2005 has been suggested as the cause.^[76][77]

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013; Google is part of the coalition of public and private organizations that also includes Facebook, Intel, and Microsoft. Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.^[78]

The corporation's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2013 was reported in mid-October 2013 as $14.89 billion, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous quarter.^[79] Google's Internet business was responsible for $10.8 billion of this total, with an increase in the number of users' clicks on advertisements.^[80]

According to Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report, Google has been the second most valuable brand in the world (behind Apple Inc.) in 2013,^[81] 2014,^[82] 2015,^[83] and 2016, with a valuation of $133 billion.^[84]

In September 2015, Google engineering manager Rachel Potvin revealed details about Google's software code at an engineering conference. She revealed that the entire Google codebase, which spans every single service it develops, consists of over 2 billion lines of code. All that code is stored in a code repository available to all 25,000 Google engineers, and the code is regularly copied and updated on 10 Google data centers. To keep control, Potvin said Google has built its own "version control system", called "Piper", and that "when you start a new project, you have a wealth of libraries already available to you. Almost everything has already been done." Engineers can make a single code change and deploy it on all services at the same time. The only major exceptions are that the PageRank search results algorithm is stored separately with only specific employee access, and the code for the Android operating system and the Google Chrome browser are also stored separately, as they don't run on the Internet. The "Piper" system spans 85 TB of data. Google engineers make 25,000 changes to the code each day and on a weekly basis change approximately 15 million lines of code across 250,000 files. With that much code, automated bots have to help. Potvin reported, "You need to make a concerted effort to maintain code health. And this is not just humans maintaining code health, but robots too.” Bots aren't writing code, but generating a lot of the data and configuration files needed to run the company's software. "Not only is the size of the repository increasing," Potvin explained, "but the rate of change is also increasing. This is an exponential curve."^[85][86]

As of October 2016, Google operates 70 offices in more than 40 countries.^[87] Alexa, a company that monitors commercial web traffic, lists Google.com as the most visited website in the world.^[88] Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube^[89] and Blogger.^[90]

Acquisitions and partnerships

Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2003

2000–2009

In 2001, Google acquired Deja News, the operators of a large archive of materials from Usenet.^[91][92] Google rebranded the archive as Google Groups, and by the end of the year, it had expanded the history back to 1981.^[93][94]

In April 2003, Google acquired Applied Semantics, a company specializing in making software applications for the online advertising space.^[95][96] The AdSense contextual advertising technology developed by Applied Semantics was adopted into Google's advertising efforts.^[97][94]

In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole, Inc.^[98] Keyhole's eponymous product was later renamed Google Earth.

In April 2005, Google acquired Urchin Software, using their Urchin on Demand product (along with ideas from Adaptive Path's Measure Map) to create Google Analytics in 2006.

In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired the video-sharing site YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock,^[99][100] and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.^[101][102]

On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, transferring to Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies.^[103] The deal was approved despite anti-trust concerns raised by competitors Microsoft and AT&T.^[104]

In addition to the many companies Google has purchased, the firm has partnered with other organizations for research, advertising, and other activities. In 2005, Google partnered with NASA Ames Research Center to build 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m²) of offices.^[105]

In 2005 Google partnered with AOL^[106] to enhance each other's video search services. In 2006 Google and Fox Interactive Media of News Corporation entered into a $900 million agreement to provide search and advertising on the then-popular social networking site MySpace.^[107]

In 2007, Google began sponsoring NORAD Tracks Santa, displacing the former sponsor AOL. NORAD Tracks Santa purports to follow Santa Claus' progress on Christmas Eve,^[108] using Google Earth to "track Santa" in 3-D for the first time.^[109][110]

In 2008, Google developed a partnership with GeoEye to launch a satellite providing Google with high-resolution (0.41 m monochrome, 1.65 m color) imagery for Google Earth. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on September 6, 2008.^[111] Google also announced in 2008 that it was hosting an archive of Life Magazine's photographs.^[112][113]

2010–present

In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, 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.^[114] In February 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FERC granted Google an authorization to buy and sell energy at market rates.^[115] The order specifically states that Google Energy—a subsidiary of Google—holds the rights "for the sale of energy, capacity, and ancillary services at market-based rates", but acknowledges that neither Google Energy nor its affiliates "own or control any generation or transmission" facilities.^[116] The corporation exercised this authorization in September 2013 when it announced it would purchase all the electricity produced by the not-yet-built 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm.^[117]

Also in 2010, Google purchased Global IP Solutions, a Norway-based company that provides web-based teleconferencing and other related services. This acquisition enabled Google to add telephone-style services to its list of products.^[118] On May 27, 2010, Google announced it had also closed the acquisition of the mobile ad network AdMob. This occurred days after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation into the purchase.^[119] Google acquired the company for an undisclosed amount.^[120] In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of energy for 20 years.^[121]

On April 4, 2011, The Globe and Mail reported that Google bid $900 million for 6000 Nortel Networks patents.^[122]

On August 15, 2011, Google made its largest-ever acquisition to-date when it announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion^[123][124] 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 revealed that the acquisition was 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 Apple and Microsoft have sued Android device makers such as HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.^[125] The merger was completed on May 22, 2012, after the approval of China.^[126]

This purchase was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies, to help protect Google in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies,^[127] mainly Apple and Microsoft,^[125] and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.^[128] After the acquisition closed, Google began to restructure the Motorola business to fit Google's strategy. On August 13, 2012, Google announced plans to lay off 4000 Motorola Mobility employees.^[129] On December 10, 2012, Google sold the manufacturing operations of Motorola Mobility to Flextronics for $75 million.^[130] As a part of the agreement, Flextronics will manufacture undisclosed Android and other mobile devices.^[131] On December 19, 2012, Google sold the Motorola Home business division of Motorola Mobility to Arris Group for $2.35 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. As a part of this deal, Google acquired a 15.7% stake in Arris Group valued at $300 million.^[132][133]

In June 2013, Google acquired Waze, a $966 million deal.^[134] While Waze would remain an independent entity, its social features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google's own mapping service.^[135]

On January 26, 2014, Google announced it had agreed to acquire DeepMind Technologies, a privately-held artificial intelligence company from London. DeepMind describes itself as having the ability to combine the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build general-purpose learning algorithms. DeepMind's first commercial applications were used in simulations, e-commerce and games. As of December 2013, it was reported that DeepMind had roughly 75 employees.^[136] Technology news website Recode reported that the company was purchased for $400 million though it was not disclosed where the information came from. A Google spokesman would not comment of the price.^[137][138] The purchase of DeepMind aids in Google's recent growth in the artificial intelligence and robotics community.^[139]

On January 29, 2014, Google announced that it would divest Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion, a fraction of the original $12.5 billion price paid by Google to acquire the company. Google retained all but 2000 of Motorola's patents and entered into cross-licensing deals.^[140]

On September 21, 2017, HTC announced a "cooperation agreement" in which it would sell non-exclusive rights to certain intellectual property, as well as smartphone talent, to Google for $1.1 billion.^{[141][142][143]}

On December 6, 2017, Google made its first investment in India and picked up a significant minority stake in hyper-local concierge and delivery player Dunzo.^[144] The Benguluru based startup received $12 million investment in Google's series B funding round.^[145]

On March 29, 2018, Google led a Series C funding round into online-to-offline fashion e-commerce start-up Fynd.^[146] It was its second direct investment in India with an undisclosed amount.^[147][148] In this way, Google is also looking to build an ecosystem in India across high-frequency hyper-local transactions as well as in the healthcare, financial services, and education sectors.

Google data centers

Google data centers are located in North and South America, Asia, Europe.^[149]

Traditionally, Google relied on parallel computing on commodity hardware^[150] like mainstream x86 computers similar to home PCs^[151] to keep costs per query low.^[152] In 2005, it started developing its own designs, which were only revealed in 2009.^[152]

In October 2013, The Washington Post reported that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted communications between Google's data centers, as part of a program named MUSCULAR.^[153][154] This wiretapping was made possible because Google did not encrypt data passed inside its own network.^[155] Google began encrypting data sent between data centers in 2013.^[156]

Google's most efficient data center runs at 35 °C (95 °F) using only fresh air cooling, requiring no electrically powered air conditioning; the servers run so hot that humans cannot go near them for extended periods.^[157]

An August 2011 report estimated that Google had about 900,000 servers in their data centers, based on energy usage. The report does state that "Google never says how many servers are running in its data centers."^[158]

In December 2016, Google announced that—starting in 2017—it will power all of its data centers, as well as all of its offices, from 100% renewable energy. The commitment will make Google "the world's largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy". Google also stated that it does not count that as its final goal; it says that "since the wind doesn't blow 24 hours a day, we'll also broaden our purchases to a variety of energy sources that can enable renewable power, every hour of every day". Additionally, the project will "help support communities" around the world, as the purchase commitments will "result in infrastructure investments of more than $3.5 billion globally", and will "generate tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue to local property owners, and tens of millions more to local and national governments in tax revenue".^{[159][160][161]}

Alphabet

On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet. Google became Alphabet's leading subsidiary, and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became CEO of Alphabet.^{[162][163][164]}
On September 1, 2017, Google Inc. announced its plans of restructuring as a limited liability company, Google LLC, as a wholly owned subsidiary of XXVI Holdings Inc., which is formed as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. to hold the equity of its other subsidiaries, including Google LLC and other bets.^[165]

Products and services

Advertising

Google on ad-tech London, 2010

For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues.^[166] In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs.^[167] In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology from the company DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history.^[168][169]

In 2007, Google launched "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.^[170]

Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page.^[171] 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 a cost-per-click scheme.^[172] The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked.^[173]

One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20  percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.^[174]

In February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations."^[175] In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized because of antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November 2008.^[176][177]

In July 2016, Google started rejecting all flash based adverts replacing them by HTM5. Google’s plan was to go “100% HTML5” beginning on January 2, 2017.^[178]

Search engine

Google Search homepage as of 2 December 2016

According to comScore market research from November 2009, Google Search is the dominant search engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%.^[179] Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators.^[180]

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.^[181] In both Field v. Google and Parker v. Google, the United States District Court of Nevada ruled in favor of Google.^[182][183] The publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has compiled a list of words that google's new instant search feature will not search.^[184]

Google Watch has criticized Google's PageRank algorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites.^[185]

Google also hosts Google Books. The company began scanning books and uploading limited previews, and full books were allowed, into its new book search 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 service. Google replied that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books.^[186] Google eventually reached a revised settlement in 2009 to limit its scans to books from the U.S., the UK, Australia, and Canada.^[187] 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.^[188] In competition with Amazon.com, Google sells digital versions of new books.^[189]

On July 21, 2010, in response to Bing, Google updated its image search to display a streaming sequence of thumbnails that enlarge when pointed at. Although web searches still appear in a batch per page format, on July 23, 2010, dictionary definitions for certain English words began appearing above the linked results for web searches.^[190]

The "Hummingbird" update to the Google search engine was announced in September 2013. The update was introduced over the month prior to the announcement and allows users ask the search engine a question in natural language rather than entering keywords into the search box.^[191]

In August 2016, Google announced two major changes to its mobile search results. The first change removes the "mobile-friendly" label that highlighted easy to read pages from its mobile search results page. For the second change, the company—starting on January 10, 2017—will punish mobile pages that show intrusive interstitial advertisements when a user first opens a page. Such pages will also rank lower in Google search results.^[192]

In May 2017, Google enabled a new "Personal" tab in Google Search, letting users search for content in their Google accounts' various services, including email messages from Gmail and photos from Google Photos.^[193][194]

Enterprise services

G Suite is a monthly subscription offering for organizations and businesses to get access to a collection of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Drive and Docs, Sheets, and Slides, with additional administrative tools, unique domain names, and 24/7 support.^[195]

Google's search appliance at the 2008 RSA Conference

Google Search Appliance was launched in February 2002, targeted toward providing search technology for larger organizations.^[11] Google launched the Mini three years later, which was targeted at smaller organizations. Late in 2006, Google began to sell Custom Search Business Edition, providing customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index. The service was renamed Google Site Search in 2008.^[196] Site Search customers were notified by email in late March 2017 that no new licenses for Site Search would be sold after April 1, 2017, but that customer and technical support would be provided for the duration of existing license agreements.^[197][198]

On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, "a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers" which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform. Among other things, the suite is designed to help "enterprise class marketers" "see the complete customer journey", generate "useful insights", and "deliver engaging experiences to the right people".^[199] Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the suite competes with existing marketing cloud offerings by companies including Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM.^[200]

Business incubator

On September 24, 2012,^[201] Google launched Google for Entrepreneurs, a largely not-for-profit business incubator providing startups with co-working spaces known as Campuses, with assistance to startup founders that may include workshops, conferences, and mentorships.^[202] Presently, there are 7 Campus locations in Berlin, London, Madrid, Seoul, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw.

Consumer services

Web-based services

Google offers Gmail, and the newer variant Inbox,^[203] for email,^[204] Google Calendar for time-management and scheduling,^[205] Google Maps for mapping, navigation and satellite imagery,^[206] Google Drive for cloud storage of files,^[207] Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for productivity,^[207] Google Photos for photo storage and sharing,^[208] Google Keep for note-taking,^[209] Google Translate for language translation,^[210] YouTube for video viewing and sharing,^[211] and Google+, Allo, and Duo for social interaction.^{[212][213][214]}

Software

Google develops the Android mobile operating system,^[215] as well as its smartwatch,^[216] television,^[217] car,^[218] and Internet of things-enabled smart devices variations.^[219]

It also develops the Google Chrome web browser,^[220] and Chrome OS, an operating system based on Chrome.^[221]

Hardware

In January 2010, Google released Nexus One, the first Android phone under its own, "Nexus", brand.^[222] It spawned a number of phones and tablets under the "Nexus" branding^[223] until its eventual discontinuation in 2016, replaced by a new brand called, Pixel.^[224]

In 2011, the Chromebook was introduced, described as a "new kind of computer" running Chrome OS.^[225]

In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, that allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions.^[226][227]

In June 2014, Google announced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that lets user place their smartphone in a special front compartment to view virtual reality (VR) media.^[228][229]

In April 2016, Recode reported that Google had hired Rick Osterloh, Motorola Mobility's former President, to head Google's new hardware division.^[230] In October 2016, Osterloh stated that "a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience",^[224] and Google announced several hardware platforms:

• The Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones with the Google Assistant, a next-generation contextual voice assistant, built-in.^[231]
• Google Home, an Amazon Echo-like voice assistant placed in the house that can answer voice queries, play music, find information from apps (calendar, weather etc.), and control third-party smart home appliances (users can tell it to turn on the lights, for example).^[232]
• Daydream View virtual reality headset that lets Android users with compatible Daydream-ready smartphones put their phones in the headset and enjoy VR content.^[233]
• Google Wifi, a connected set of Wi-Fi routers to simplify and extend coverage of home Wi-Fi.^[234]

Internet services

In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.^[235][236] Following Google's corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet's Access division.^[237][238]

In April 2015, Google announced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator, that combines Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different telecommunication providers in an effort to enable seamless connectivity and fast Internet signal.^{[239][240][241]}

In September 2016, Google began its Google Station initiative, a project for public Wi-Fi at railway stations in India. Caesar Sengupta, VP for Google's next billion users, told The Verge that 15,000 people get online for the first time thanks to Google Station and that 3.5 million people use the service every month. The expansion meant that Google was looking for partners around the world to further develop the initiative, which promised "high-quality, secure, easily accessible Wi-Fi".^[242] By December, Google Station had been deployed at 100 railway stations,^[243] and in February, Google announced its intention to expand beyond railway stations, with a plan to bring citywide Wi-Fi to Pune.^[244][245]

Other products

Google launched its Google News service in 2002, an automated service which summarizes news articles from various websites.^[246] In March 2005, Agence France Presse (AFP) 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 license of the full text of AFP articles for use on Google News.^[247]

In May 2011, Google announced Google Wallet, a mobile application for wireless payments.^[248]

In 2013, Google launched Google Shopping Express, a delivery service initially available only in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.^[249]

Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, offered by the search engine company Google. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results—such as web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs—that match the user's search term.^{[250][251][252]}

In July 2015 Google released DeepDream, an image recognition software capable of creating psychedelic images using a convolutional neural network.^{[253][254][255]}

Google introduced its Family Link service in March 2017, letting parents buy Android Nougat-based Android devices for kids under 13 years of age and create a Google account through the app, with the parents controlling the apps installed, monitor the time spent using the device, and setting a "Bedtime" feature that remotely locks the device.^{[256][257][258]}

In April 2017, Google launched AutoDraw, a web-based tool using artificial intelligence and machine learning to recognize users' drawings and replace scribbles with related stock images that have been created by professional artists.^{[259][260][261]} The tool is built using the same technology as QuickDraw, an experimental game from Google's Creative Lab where users were tasked with drawing objects that algorithms would recognize within 20 seconds.^[262]

In May 2017, Google added "Family Groups" to several of its services. The feature, which lets users create a group consisting of their family members' individual Google accounts, lets users add their "Family Group" as a collaborator to shared albums in Google Photos, shared notes in Google Keep, and common events in Google Calendar. At announcement, the feature is limited to Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.^[263][264]

APIs

Google APIs are a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Google which allow communication with Google Services and their integration to other services. Examples of these include Search, Gmail, Translate or Google Maps. Third-party apps can use these APIs to take advantage of or extend the functionality of the existing services.

Other websites

Google Developers is Google's site for software development tools, APIs, and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products.

Google Labs was a page created by Google to demonstrate and test new projects.

Google owns the top-level domain 1e100.net which is used for some servers within Google's network. The name is a reference to the scientific E notation representation for 1 googol, 1E100 = 1 × 10¹⁰⁰.^[265]

In March 2017, Google launched a new website, opensource.google.com, to publish its internal documentation for Google Open Source projects.^[266][267]

In June 2017, Google launched "We Wear Culture", a searchable archive of 3,000 years of global fashion. The archive, a result of collaboration between Google and over 180 museums, schools, fashion institutes, and other organizations, also offers curated exhibits of specific fashion topics and their impact on society.^[268][269]

Corporate affairs and culture

Eric Schmidt

Then-CEO, now Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt with cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (left to right) in 2008.

On Fortune magazine's list of the best companies to work for, Google ranked first in 2007, 2008 and 2012^{[270][271][272]} and fourth in 2009 and 2010.^[273][274] Google was also nominated in 2010 to be the world's most attractive employer to graduating students in the Universum Communications talent attraction index.^[275] Google's corporate philosophy includes principles such 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."^[276]

Employees

As of March 2018, Google has 85,050 employees.^[4] Google's 2017 diversity report states that 31 percent of its workforce are women and 69 percent are men, with the ethnicity of its workforce being predominately white (56%) and Asian (35%).^[277] Within tech roles, however, 20 percent were women; and 25 percent of leadership roles were held by women.^[277] The report also announced that Intel's former vice president, CDO, and CHRO Danielle Brown would be joining Google as its new Vice President of Diversity.^[277] A March 2013 report was presented at EclipseCon2013 which detailed that Google had over 10,000 developers based in more than 40 offices.^{[278][needs update]}

Google's employees are hired based on a hierarchical system. Employees are split into six hierarchies based on experience and can range "from entry-level data center workers at level one to managers and experienced engineers at level six."^[279]

After the company's IPO in 2004, 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 increase their salaries were turned down, primarily because their main compensation continues to come from owning stock in Google. Before 2004, Schmidt made $250,000 per year, and Page and Brin each received an annual salary of $150,000.^[280]

In March 2008, Sheryl Sandberg, then vice-president of global online sales and operations, began her position as chief operating officer of Facebook.^[281][282] In 2009, early employee Tim Armstrong left to become CEO of AOL. In July 2012, Google's first female engineer, Marissa Mayer, left Google to become Yahoo!'s CEO.^[283]

In 2017 former Intel executive Diane Bryant became Chief Operating Officer of Google Cloud.^[284]

New employees are called "Nooglers," and are given a propeller beanie cap to wear on their first Friday.^[285]

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 services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.^[286] In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience until July 2012, showed that half of all new product launches in the second half of 2005 had originated from the Innovation Time Off.^[287]

Office locations and headquarters

Google Mountain View campus garden

Bicycles painted in the corporate color scheme are available for free use by any employee travelling around the Googleplex

Mountain View

Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California is referred to as "the Googleplex", a play on words on the number googolplex and the headquarters itself being a complex of buildings. The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Many employees have access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, table football, a baby grand piano, a billiard table, and ping pong. In addition to the recreation room, there are snack rooms stocked with various foods and drinks, with special emphasis placed on nutrition.^[288] Free food is available to employees 24/7, with the offerings provided by paid vending machines prorated based on and favoring those of better nutritional value.^[289]

Google's extensive amenities are not available to all of its workers. Temporary workers such as book scanners do not have access to shuttles, Google cafes, or other perks.^[290]

New York City

Google's New York City office building houses its largest advertising sales team.

In 2006, Google moved into about 300,000 square feet (27,900 m²) of office space in New York City, at 111 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. The office was designed and built specially for Google, and houses its largest advertising sales team, which has been instrumental in securing large partnerships.^[291] The New York headquarters includes a game room, micro-kitchens, and a video game area.^[292] In 2010, Google bought the building housing the headquarter, in a deal that valued the property at around $1.9 billion, the biggest for a single building in the United States that year.^[293][294] In February 2012, Google moved additional employees to the New York City campus, with a total of around 2,750 employees.^[295] In 2018, Google's parent company Alphabet bought Chelsea Market building for $2.4 billion nearby its current New York HQ. The sale is touted as one of the Most Expensive Real estate Transactions for a single building in history of New York.^{[296][297][298][299]}

Other U.S. cities

By late 2006, Google established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan.^[300] In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh, focusing on shopping-related advertisement coding and smartphone applications and programs.^[301][302] Other office locations in the U.S. include Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Reston, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.^[303]

In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs.^[304] 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.^[304] In addition, Google announced in 2009 that it was deploying herds of goats to keep grassland around the Googleplex short, helping to prevent the threat from seasonal bush fires while also reducing the carbon footprint of mowing the extensive grounds.^[305][306] The idea of trimming lawns using goats originated from Bob Widlar, an engineer who worked for National Semiconductor.^[307] In 2008, Google faced accusations in Harper's Magazine of being an "energy glutton". The company was accused of employing its "Don't be evil" motto and its public energy-saving campaigns to cover up or make up for the massive amounts of energy its servers require.^[308]

International locations

Internationally, Google has over 78 offices in more than 50 countries.^[309] It also has product research and development operations in cities around the world, namely Sydney (birthplace location of Google Maps)^[310] and London (part of Android development).^[311]

In November 2013, Google announced plans for a new London headquarter, a notable 1 million square foot office able to accommodate 4,500 employees. Recognized as one of the biggest ever commercial property acquisitions at the time of the deal's announcement in January,^[312] Google submitted plans for the new headquarter to the Camden Council in June 2017. The new building, if approved, will feature a rooftop garden with a running track, giant moving blinds, a swimming pool, and a multi-use games area for sports.^[313][314]

In May 2015, Google announced its intention to create its own campus in Hyderabad, India. The new campus, reported to be the company's largest outside the United States, will accommodate 13,000 employees.^[315][316]

Doodles

Since 1998, Google has been designing special, temporary alternate logos to place on their homepage intended to celebrate holidays, events, achievements and people. The first Google Doodle was in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998.^[317][318] The doodle was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Subsequent Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, until Larry and Sergey asked then-intern Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day in 2000. From that point onward, Doodles have been organized and created by a team of employees termed "Doodlers".^[319]

Easter eggs and April Fools' Day jokes

Google has a tradition of creating April Fools' Day jokes. On April 1, 2000, Google MentalPlex allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web.^[320] 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-optic cable down their toilet.^[321] Also in 2007, Google's Gmail page displayed an announcement for Gmail Paper, allowing users to have email messages printed and shipped to them.^[322] In 2008, Google announced Gmail Custom time where users could change the time that the email was sent.^[323]

In 2010, Google changed its company name to Topeka in honor of Topeka, Kansas, whose mayor 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.^[324][325] In 2011, Google announced Gmail Motion, an interactive way of controlling Gmail and the computer with body movements via the user's webcam.^[326]

Google's services contain easter eggs, such as the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, "Hacker" or leetspeak, Elmer Fudd, Pirate, and Klingon as language selections for its search engine.^[327] The search 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.^[328] When searching the word "recursion", the spell-checker's result for the properly spelled word is exactly the same word, creating a recursive link.^[329]

When searching for the word "anagram," meaning a rearrangement of letters from one word to form other valid words, Google's suggestion feature displays "Did you mean: nag a ram?"^[330] In Google Maps, searching for directions between places separated by large bodies of water, such as Los Angeles and Tokyo, results in instructions to "kayak across the Pacific Ocean." During FIFA World Cup 2010, search queries including "World Cup" and "FIFA" caused the "Goooo...gle" page indicator at the bottom of every result page to read "Goooo...al!" instead.^[331]

Philanthropy

In 2004, Google formed the not-for-profit philanthropic Google.org, with a start-up fund of $1 billion.^[332] The mission of the organization is to create awareness about climate change, global public health, and global poverty. One of its first projects was to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 miles per gallon. Google hired Larry Brilliant as the program's executive director in 2004^[333]and Megan Smith has since replaced him has director.^[334]

In 2008, Google announced its "project 10¹⁰⁰" which accepted ideas for how to help the community and then allowed Google users to vote on their favorites.^[335] After two years of silence, during which many wondered what had happened to the program,^[336] Google revealed the winners of the project, giving a total of ten million dollars to various ideas ranging from non-profit organizations that promote education to a website that intends to make all legal documents public and online.^[337]

In March 2007, in partnership with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), Google hosted the first Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival at its headquarters in Mountain View.^[338] In 2011, Google donated 1 million euros to International Mathematical Olympiad to support the next five annual International Mathematical Olympiads (2011–2015).^[339][340] In July 2012, Google launched a "Legalize Love" campaign in support of gay rights.^[341]

Tax avoidance

Google uses various tax avoidance strategies. Out of the five largest American technology companies, it pays the lowest taxes to the countries of origin of its revenues. Google between 2007 and 2010 saved $3.1 billion in taxes by shuttling non-U.S. profits through Ireland and the Netherlands and then to Bermuda. Such techniques lower its non-U.S. tax rate to 2.3 per cent, while normally the corporate tax rate in for instance the UK is 28 per cent.^[342] This has reportedly sparked a French investigation into Google's transfer pricing practices.^[343]

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.^[344]

Google Vice President Matt Brittin testified to the Public Accounts Committee of the UK House of Commons that his UK sales team made no sales and hence owed no sales taxes to the UK.^[345] In January 2016, Google reached a settlement with the UK to pay £130m in back taxes plus higher taxes in future.^[346]

Environment

Since 2007, Google has aimed for carbon neutrality in regard to its operations.^[347]

Google disclosed in September 2011 that it "continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes", almost 260 million watts or about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant. Total carbon emissions for 2010 were just under 1.5 million metric tons, mostly due to fossil fuels that provide electricity for the data centers. Google said that 25 percent of its energy was supplied by renewable fuels in 2010. An average search uses only 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, so all global searches are only 12.5 million watts or 5% of the total electricity consumption by Google.^[348]

In 2007, Google launched a project centered on developing renewable energy, titled the "Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE[349]

However, the project was cancelled in 2014, after engineers Ross Koningstein and David Fork understood, after years of study, that "best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change", writing that they "came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions".^[350]

In June 2013, The Washington Post reported that Google had donated $50,000 to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that calls human carbon emissions a positive factor in the environment and argues that global warming is not a concern.^[351]

In July 2013, it was reported that Google had hosted a fundraising event for Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, who has called climate change a "hoax".^[352] In 2014 Google cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after pressure from the Sierra Club, major unions and Google's own scientists because of ALEC's stance on climate change and opposition to renewable energy.^[353]

In November 2017, Google bought 536 megawatts of wind power. The purchase made the firm reach 100% renewable energy. The wind energy comes from two power plants in South Dakota, one in Iowa and one in Oklahoma.^[354]

Lobbying

In 2013, Google ranked 5th in lobbying spending, up from 213th in 2003. In 2012, the company ranked 2nd in campaign donations of technology and Internet sections.^[355]

Litigation

Google has been involved in a number of lawsuits including the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation which resulted in Google being one of four companies to pay a $415 million settlement to employees.^[356]

On June 27, 2017, the company received a record fine of €2.42 billion from the European Union for "promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results."^[357] Commenting on the penalty, New Scientist magazine said: "The hefty sum – the largest ever doled out by the EU's competition regulators – will sting in the short term, but Google can handle it. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, made a profit of $2.5 billion (€2.2 billion) in the first six weeks of 2017 alone. The real impact of the ruling is that Google must stop using its dominance as a search engine to give itself the edge in another market: online price comparisons." The company disputed the ruling.^[358]

Criticism and controversy

Google's market dominance has led to prominent media coverage, including criticism of the company over issues such as aggressive tax avoidance,^[359] search neutrality, copyright, censorship of search results and content,^[360] and privacy.^[361][362] Other criticisms include alleged misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of others' intellectual property, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy, and the energy consumption of its servers, as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as monopoly, restraint of trade, anti-competitive practices, and patent infringement.
Google's mission statement, from the outset, was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful",^[363] and its unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil".^[364] In October 2015, a related motto was adopted in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase: "Do the right thing".^[365] The original motto was retained in the code of conduct of Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet.^[8]

Google's commitment to such robust idealism has been increasingly called into doubt due to a number of the firm's actions and behaviours which appear to contradict this.^[366][367]

Following media reports about PRISM, NSA's massive electronic surveillance program, in June 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Google.^[368] According to leaks of said program, Google joined the PRISM program in 2009.^[369]

On August 8, 2017, Google fired employee James Damore after he distributed a memo throughout the company which argued that "Google's ideological echo chamber" and bias clouded their thinking about diversity and inclusion, and that it is also biological factors, not discrimination alone, that cause the average woman to be less interested than men in technical positions.^[370] Google CEO Sundar Pichai accused Damore in violating company policy by "advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace", and he was fired on the same day.^{[371][372][373]} New York Times columnist David Brooks argued Pichai had mishandled the case, and called for his resignation.^[374][375]

Reportedly, Google's influenced New America think tank to expel their Open Markets research group, after the group has criticized Google monopolistic power and supported the EU $2.7B fine of Google.^[376][377]

Google was working with the United States Department of Defense on drone software called "Project Maven" that could be used to improve the accuracy of drone strikes.^[378] Thousands of Google employees, including senior engineers, have signed a letter urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to end a controversial contract with the Pentagon.^[379]

Legal controversies

In 2017, David Elliot and Chris Gillespie argued before the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals that "google" had suffered genericide. The controversy began in 2012 when Gillespie acquired 763 domain names containing the word "google." Google promptly filed a complaint with the NAF. Elliot then filed a petition for cancelling the Google trademark. Ultimately, the court ruled in favor of Google because Elliot failed to show a preponderance of evidence showing the genericide of "google."^[380]