Google On An “Evil” Trip?

Google’s been doing some unpopular things of late:

They ran “tips” above search results, basically ads for Google services on any remotely related search, ones that no one could compete with and that appeared on searches that were completely irrelevant, like “tips” for Blogger on searches for “blogoscoped”. There were very unpopular, and eventually Google had to remove them, although them may return in a less agressive form.
Google cancelled the Picasa referral ads program, rolling them into Google Pack referrals. The old Picasa ads now read “Organize your digital photo album with the free Google Pack”, essentially turning Google Pack into bundled junk ware by advertising a program and delivering it in an installer with many other programs that were unadvertised and not wanted by the user.
Google added a line in its product search OneBox that gives special placement to stores that use Google Checkout, giving them added visibility […]

Original post by Nathan Weinberg