Having lectured for Google I would have to beg to differ. They give more out for free than any other major company twice their size and ask nothing in return. If you know how to use the tools they provide free of charge, you have access to everything from free phone service and e-mail to satellite imagery and street view. All of which they do not charge you a dime for and even grant free cloud storage, hangouts for free video conferencing (unlike Microsoft's newly acquired Skype), and the list goes on. They have a neutral carbon footprint, but I'll digress from my rant before I become a Google spokes-model.

If you hate Google you're entitled to your opinion but you'll be hard pressed to find a company that charges advertisers only to give a portion of those proceeds back to the online community, not for the press or publicity but because it's the right thing to do. Most people have no idea what they've given back for free because they don't do it as a publicity stunt so many of their charitable ventures go completely unnoticed.

When was the last time Microsoft or Apple gave you a free anything (other than a headache)???

We even donated all the proceeds from the conference I lectured at to fund local educational programs, all lecturers were from unpaid volunteers such as myself, and we even donated all the food left over from the caterer to a local Women's Shelter so as to waste nothing and give back everything.

Pfffttt... No one makes people use Google, they do it by choice. Bing couldn't even grab but a small fraction of their market share by paying users to use it. I'm not trying to troll you here, I may have a very biased viewpoint having actually worked with Google before on several occasions so I'm sorry if it comes off sounding that way.

People are always entitled to their own opinion and free access to public libraries if they choose to go that route. Such is their right and far be it from me to deny them that... After all, one can always fall back on Yahoo if all else fails and the library is closed.