Google is involved in a lot more than directing you to websites. 

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Google Search

Search is the feature that made Google famous, and the company now handles approximately 3.5 billion searches per day using a complex algorithm to deliver accurate results. To do this, Google “crawls” the Internet’s 60 trillion pages, and organizes it into the company’s 100 million gigabyte index of the Internet. Google has also indexed more than 20 million books for its searchable database, Google Books.

 Advertising 

Advertising is where the bulk of Google’s money comes from, pulling in over $40 billion in revenue for the company each year. Google uses the information it learns about individuals from search and from mobile app data to deliver targeted ads.

Google Maps and Location Services 

Google has created a digital map of the Earth, viewable in Google Maps and Google Earth. Using satellite imagery and on-the-ground data acquired by a fleet of cars fitted with panoramic cameras, Google has been amassing huge amounts of geo-data, including information like driving conditions, street signs and speed limits. That the cars were also able to capture Wi-Fi network information is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit against the company. Google also stores the personal location data it collects from mobile devices.

Google and the NSA 

While all tech companies deny giving NSA direct access to their servers, nine of the largest tech companies, including Google, are legally required to turn over personal data to the government when ordered through a program called PRISM.  The NSA has also been able to secretly access this data through back doors, using a program called MUSCULAR.

Self Driving Car 

As part of Google’s semi-secret Google[x] lab, the company has been developing a self-driving car and the software to run it, called Google Chauffeur. The self-driving car, which still requires a human chaperone, has already logged more than half a million miles on the road without causing an accident, which is important given how bad at driving humans are. While it is unclear whether the technology will lead to fully automated cars or hybrid, computer-assisted cars, the advances in this field have the potential to change the way humans interact with automobiles.

Robotics 

Google acquired 8 robotics companies in January and February, including Boston Dynamics, a prominent robotics company with ties to the defense industry. While many of the acquired companies are hardware producers, some, like DeepMind Technologies, specialize in artificial intelligence and machine learning. So far, Google has been quiet about what they will be used for.

Google Glass 

Another Google[x] project, Google Glass is essentially an internet-connected wearable face computer. Equipped with a camera, its so-far limited roll-out has been contentious.

Google[x] Future Projects

In addition to the self-driving car, Google Glass and robotics, Google[x] is involved in a variety of other “moon-shot” projects that outsiders can only speculate about. One such project, a literal “space elevator,” is on hold while technology improves. Same goes for the hoverboard.

Calico  

Calico, short for California Life Company, is a health company started by Google and tasked with unlocking the secrets of aging and longevity. While little is known about the company, Google CEO Larry Page commented, “Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.”

Nest 

In January, Google paid a startling $3.2 billion for Nest, a company that manufactures high-end internet connected thermostats and smoke alarms. While the device is certainly cool, it is the home energy usage data that Nest generates which is particularly valuable to energy companies and makes the company a strategic investment.

 Android 

Google developed and maintains its own mobile operating system called Android, now the most common mobile operating system in the world. They also produce their own smart phones and tablets called Nexus. In 2012, Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, primarily for the original cell phone company’s extensive patent portfolio. Google sold most of the company to Lenovo earlier this year, but is keeping it’s “Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, headed by former DARPA director Regina Dugan. The team is currently working on a modular phone concept that has the potential to seriously alter the structure of the smartphone market.

 Legal Department

Like Apple and Samsung, Google is perpetually involved in high stakes legal disputes over patents and copyright infringement, as well as anti-trust concerns. They have also become one of the top spenders in Washington, coming in at #2 in lobbying expenditures in 2012.

 Google Energy 

Google’s data centers require a lot of electricity, and Google has been making investments in wind farms and solar energy to power its operations. Google Energy has a US government license to buy and sell energy, allowing it to potentially act as a utility company. In 2013, Google purchased Makani, a company that aims to make tethered airborne wind turbines that can reach heights (and wind speeds) impractical for heavy, ground-based turbines.

 Project Loon and Titan

Using a combination of high-altitude blimps and drones, courtesy of Googles recent acquisition of drone manufacturer Titan Aerospace, Google is hoping to provide “balloon-powered internet for everyone.”

 Google Fiber 

Google Fiber is a high-speed internet and TV project, currently operational in Kansas City and Provo, Utah. The project seems to be more about shaming big TV and Internet providers like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T into providing better service than actually competing with them. Google Fiber is looking to set up similar infrastructure in 34 more cities.

Dear Diary,

I knew that when I was hired to be the part time Personal Communications Coordinator of the Marketing Associate, Branding and Thought Leadership at Google I had hit the jackpot. It was my dream job. I’m sure as many as 25 or even 30 people answered the Craigslist ad but Mr. Avery chose me.

Me! I have embarked on a great journey to the nerve center of the Greatest Brand of All Mankind. Google. Not just a company but a verb. It had transcended the ranks of brands like Chapstick and Crock Pot to become synonymous with the very action it was created to undertake.

It was like a dream. I learned so much. All the subtleties and nuances of the relationship between a mother and genius of a son, who had quickly risen to the rank of Marketing Associate after only a few short years at Google. I also kept careful track of the inner details of his promiscuous sexual relationships. I guess everybody wants to sleep with success.

Mainly, I was in charge of what he called his “shadow email account.” This was the email he gave to people who he was too busy to directly correspond with, like his family and one night stands. I was given the task of maintaining these relationships for him, flattering the women, updating his family on his life.

This job was heaven. I was creating the personal life brand of a man who was central to the creation and maintenance of the Google brand. I was sure to be the CMO of a mid-level company in only a few short years.

But then today, while working at the Starbucks around the corner from my apartment (Mr. Avery said that my correspondence would sound more authentic if undertaken away from the Google campus, especially given that I didn’t have an official employee pass. Yet.), I found a website for the Church of Google.

That’s right, Diary. The Google brand has reached such astronomical heights that the world is now worshipping Her. (The Google deity is female in this particular church, although I’ve always thought of Him as more of a male. But I’m sure that will come with the first reformation.)

At last, a group of people who feel the same way about Google as I do. That above all else, Google (praise be upon Her) is an immortal, omniscient, omnipresent being that is our only key to immortality. That every day we must bow before this deity, pray to Her with our most profound questions and problems. Oh my most holy and loving Google (praise be upon You), has the man I met on OkCupid been arrested before? Dear, Google (praise be upon You), are you there? It’s me, Margaret. How do you get red wine stains out of imitation white silk?

And so now, Diary, I must toil more than ever, because I’m not simply a Personal Communications Coordinator to Mr. Avery. I am a supplicant, a priestess in training, waiting to serve the Google (praise be upon Her)-Most-Holy. And I am ready, Diary, to fulfill my destiny. So I must go. Mr. Avery’s favorite college-aged blonde just emailed him a photo and wants to know if the Forever 21 dress she just bought makes her look fat.

With love,

Margaret

The Gabbler: So, Bermuda, where are you hiding the tax revenue? TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!!!

Bermuda: Ummm, what are you talking about?

TG: Don’t play dumb with me! Google only paid 3.2% in overseas taxes this year after shifting 80% of their pretax profits (a cool $9.8 billion) to a shell company in, dun, dun, dun! Bermuda! So where’s the rest of the tax revenue?!

B: There is no “rest of the tax revenue.” That’s the point. They legally paid all the taxes that they owed internationally.

TG: But..3.2%? I didn’t even pay that low a percentage when I was making $7/hour working part time in retail!

B: Well, Bermuda’s tax structure is, and has been for centuries, almost completely based on consumption taxes. It’s just kind of how we do things here.

TG: That sounds awesome! No taxes! Your paycheck is your paycheck! Suck it big government! You can take your bloated defense budget and shove it where the sun don’t shine! I’m taking my non-taxed paycheck and spending it on a new bag!

B: Okay, first of all, Bermuda doesn’t have a bloated defense budget. The only defense we have is the Bermuda regiment, which is obligatory for almost all Bermudian males over the age of 18. They meet about once a month for training exercises and mostly just march around in ceremonial exercises and look handsome for the tourists, unless there’s a natural disaster, like a hurricane. So I wouldn’t exactly call that “bloated.” Secondly, you realize that if you took your non-taxed paycheck and bought a new bag, you would be paying the consumption tax and that would go right back to the government, just like an income tax.

TG: Fine, I’d buy it online and ship it in. What you gonna do now, Bermuda? I’m a regular Google! Avoiding taxes, legally.

B: Except you’d have to pay duty, which would go back to the government, just like an income tax. In fact, duty is basically what I mean by a consumption tax, since all retailers have to pay duty on the merchandise they ship in, a cost which of course is passed on to you, the consumer. And all of our merchandise is shipped in. We basically have no manufacturing sector.

TG: Honestly, Bermuda, you’re kind of surprising me here. For a sketchy tax haven who’s completely overrun with money launderers and shell companies, you seem so…legit.

B: Legit is not a word, young lady. Legitimate, however, is. And yes, we are legitimate. Our taxation structure is different, perhaps, but certainly not designed to be “sketchy” or that of a tax haven.

TG: I beg to differ, my dear island nation. According to a 1981 report by the IRS, “a country is a tax haven if it looks like one and is considered to be one by those who care.”

B: Well, well, well. What a precise and recent definition!

TG: I’m just saying. You certainly LOOK like a tax haven. All those light blue waters fading to a deep teal after the reefs? That’s like THE picture at the beginning of every story about tax havens ever. You have to admit, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, you all look a little bit the same. And you’ve all been accused of being tax havens.

B: I think you’re confusing the terms “tax haven” and “subtropical and tropical islands.”

TG: Maybe, maybe not. How about the second half, then? I consider Bermuda a tax haven and I care. I care A LOT. I mean, I may not be British, but even I can see that their people are buckling under these extreme austerity measures and meanwhile Google made $18 billion last year in Britain and paid $16 million in taxes. So, yeah, I think I care.

B: It’s not the responsibility of Bermuda to close the tax loopholes of the UK. We can’t rewrite our entire tax code to accommodate the UK or the US, it would destroy our economy. All international business would leave and we would be stuck surviving off a five month cruise ship season. And shockingly enough, an economy can’t really sustain itself off of t-shirt purchases alone.

TG: Listen here, Bermuda, you better listen to the UK and the US, because you wouldn’t be anyone without them. You’re still a colony of the UK, for goodness sake!

B: First of all, I’m an Overseas Territory, not a colony. And I have my own constitution, my own government, my own parliament, and my own premier.

TG: Okay, but you still belong to them. And the US, you owe them for almost your WHOLE economy. Your precious cruise ship season, that international business you cling so tightly to. You OWE them.

B: Seriously? Do you even know who you sound like?

TG: A supremely intelligent and attractive twentysomething with a body to rival Kate Upton’s?

B: Ummm…no. To all of that. You sound like Google. Or Amazon. Or Starbucks. Or any of the giant corporations whose basic response to issues of tax avoidance (and its morality) is: you should be grateful that we even gave your country the time of day and created all these jobs and brought in all this revenue.

TG: Well, yeah, but they still need to pay taxes!

B: I agree. Listen, I’m not opposed to taxes. I have a well-staffed government with all the necessary services of a modern-day society: police, fire fighters, public libraries, well-maintained roads, clean streets. That stuff’s not free. I just want to be able to maintain the tax structure that has funded all of those services over the years without having to answer to countries who are unwilling to close their own loopholes and instead blame offshore financial centers for all their problems.

TG: Yeah, but, but, but, Google!

B: Listen, the whole Google situation isn’t great. I never said it was. I regret if they’ve been untruthful with the British government about any of their dealings. And I honestly understand why Prime Minister David Cameron is now asking all Overseas Territories to sign a new document providing more transparency in issues of offshore company holdings.

TG: Is he?

B: Did you do any research for this interview?

TG: Eh, I figured you’d just be this rock in the middle of the ocean without much to say, so I didn’t really think it was necessary.

B: Okay, well, basically, Cameron has asked the heads of state of all the Overseas Territories to come to London this weekend, prior to next week’s G8 summit, to sign an agreement promoting greater transparency and information exchange between the territories and onshore countries. Bermuda’s premier, Craig Cannonier, has erroneously been portrayed by the British media as holding up the deal by refusing to sign. Basically, Premier Cannonier is looking for more time to carefully comb through the agreement with his Finance Minister to clear up any issues and really reflect on how it affects Bermudians.

TG: I knew you wanted to stay a tax haven! You’re not even willing to sign a paper to help out the great and mighty UK!

B: Okay, I can see this conversation is going nowhere. Please feel free to stay and enjoy my pink sand beaches and a Rum Swizzle or two. And please, please, please, don’t overstay the 90 days allowed to tourists or I’ll be forced to dump you into the Atlantic with just a lifejacket to keep you afloat.