"Are you a good witch, or a bad witch" - Glynda

I have to blog about Google and ask the question - are they good or bad? Not in the right or wrong sense, just in the way that most companies usually start out with good intentions, grow (or die, and in that case who cares), and then begin protecting their market position.

Is Google headed in this direction? Most recently, Google has jumped all over Microsoft and IE7 because the default search engine is MS Live - and Google says that is bad for the consumer and have sued Microsoft, trying to force then into providing "choice" for search. Now, we are talking about two megla corporations, with huge stores of cash, money coming in every day - neither is being hounded by bill collectors or threatened with their telephone service is going to be cut off.

So, what is their motivation? Is it really the consumer and choice -- or -- something a less pure, say market perception, competitive pressure, possible that MS LIVE search will actually be good and people won't use Google? Now, what would any business person do (say someone with a market cap half of that of Microsoft's) -- if I had developed a browser and search capabilities (along with anything else I want to put into the browser), wouldn't it make sense for that to be the first choice (and probably come configured with that as the default). Now, if I have this browser and I wanted to be "nice" to my customers, I would provide some way to re-configure MY software to allow SOMEONE Else's search capability. Guess what, Microsoft has done that, and from what I understand, it's fairly easy and painless.

So I ask again, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch" and Google please answer the question honestly - remember, actions speak louder than words (but maybe not as loud as lawsuits).