[spandrew]

A social media ad company would be the least favourable. At least Google's central ad business is based off of search queries the user gives to them willingly for value.

[athenot]

I think google amasses far more information via website analytics, Gmail and SSO (Log in with Google) than "willingly"-input search queries.

[rpgbr]

This was the case, like, 20 years ago. Google is effectively an ad company that makes tech — including a browser — to gather more data from users and sell ads.

[marcosdumay]

They have no lack of attempts to change their central business into a social media ad company, tough. They just failed.