Google is being cast as a company that abandoned its own promise to protect users, a negative story for anyone who values online privacy.

• In 2015, a corporate restructuring dropped Google's original "don't be evil" motto, framed here as the company giving itself permission to act against users' interests.
• Back in 2009, then-CEO Eric Schmidt said that if you have something you don't want known, maybe you shouldn't be doing it — a stance critics see as dismissive of privacy.
• Google keeps records of what people search for, and it holds onto that information for a long time.
• The core worry: people treat Google as a trusted friend, but the company has access to deeply personal data and few real limits on using it.

Outlook: Expect more scrutiny of how big tech firms store and use personal search data, with trust in Google likely to keep eroding.