given the years of covert actions slowly coming to light, this is changing. I'm not just talking about relationships with 3-letter agencies but also actions like colluding to push down developer salaries, black-boxing their search algorithms, suddenly blacklisting competitors in their search rankings (e.g. Rap Genius), WiFi and Streeview privacy invasion, etc... How many times have they already faced Antitrust accusations?
Add to that the fact that Google is THE face of the recent tech backlash. Others don't like the whole idea that they employ a tiny fraction of someone like GM yet "hoovering up public subsidies and then avoiding taxes"[1]. If the public backlash continues or increases, we'll all start to face (some) repercussions - so how long will the tech community support Google en masse?
A lot of that is a tempest in a teapot. Rap Genius was blacklisted for good reasons, they were clearly gaming the system using blackhat SEO techniques.
Antitrust accusations? You mean those funded by Microsoft astroturf lobbying groups?
And just listen to your other complaint: Google is the face of rich privileged techies, and at the same time, their uncool for theoretically pushing down salaries, and these already hated SF techies should be showered with even more money? If you look at the publicly released transcripts, Steve Jobs was the ringleader of this effort anyway and threatened to "go to war" with some of the players if they poached Apple employees. Why isn't Apple facing similar outrage over this? Steve Jobs tried to price fix engineering salaries and price fix eBooks.
Becoming anti-privacy, pro-DRM, and against net neutrality are much more significant betrayals.
The reason Apple doesn't get such a backlash is that they haven't represented themselves as morally superior. Everyone knows Steve Jobs was a ruthless businessman, and that Apple is not a philanthropic organization.
Add to that the fact that Google is THE face of the recent tech backlash. Others don't like the whole idea that they employ a tiny fraction of someone like GM yet "hoovering up public subsidies and then avoiding taxes"[1]. If the public backlash continues or increases, we'll all start to face (some) repercussions - so how long will the tech community support Google en masse?
[1]http://www.economist.com/news/21588893-tech-elite-will-join-...