[RobAley]

No, I arrived at that conclusion because KitKat and Google have both publicly announced the tie-up, and Google doesn't seem to understand, or more likely doesn't care, what it means to actively promote a company like Nestle. There are plently of other "K" foods they could choose if they wanted to.

To be fair, it's not just this incident that helped me reach the conclusion, its been festering at the back of my mind for a while.

[pixie_]

If you avoided every company that has done morally reprehensible things, then you would probably be naked right now and have no way to get to work.

[RobAley]

You would be surprised at what you can achieve with a little effort and using mainly smaller companies with an ethical bent (certainly ethical clothing and bicycles are available).

Nevertheless, I agree it is hard, and I'll likely be using some of Googles services for a while yet. My main point is how my view of them has changed, and that will make me seek out alternatives when possible.

[strickjb9]

I'm not sure I see this as anything more as a co-branding strategy.

[DanBC]

But it's a co-branding strategy with a company that is widely condemned as having some horrible (and illegal) practices.

It's trivially easy to find these. I cannot believe that anyone at the largest search engine company in history failed to find or read criticism of Nestle before announcing the co branding.

The only conclusion to draw is that Google knew about, and did not care about, the criticism of Nestle.

Why not go the easy route and find a less obviously evil company?

[gbog]

Another possible conclusion is that they selected a few possibilities, including other K-desserts (Kakao? no, too Cocoa; Kremlin Cake? too sovietic; Kaki jam? Weird, too Chinese; etc) and decided the less bad one was Kitkat.

I'd say the problem is to be too systematic. Same with Ubuntu Zoomy Zoo and Apple iSeries. Would a writer submit himself to such a gimmick for his book's names?

However, my main grip again Kitkat would be that it is the same as all other "chocolate" bar: it is industrial junk-food, making us all obese, and it do not contain chocolate.

[DanBC]

> Would a writer submit himself to such a gimmick for his book's names?

You'd be surprised! Some of these are weaker than others.

Stephanie Plum (By Janet Evanovich) start "One for the money", "two for the dough", "three to get deadly", "four to score", etc etc. (https://duckduckgo.com/c/Stephanie_Plum_books)(This is a terrible website)(http://stephanieplum.com/)

Hannah Swenson, 'murder she baked', has food in each title (and a recipe in each book) (admittedly, the titles aren't in any order) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_14?url=search-ali...)

(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Janet-Evanovich/e/B000APXTY4/ref=sr_...)

Women's Murder club. Each title starts with an incremented digit. "1St to die", "2nd chance", "3rd degree", etc. (http://www.jamespatterson.com/books_wmc.php#.Uigpk9KRC0I)

Alex Cross, (By James Patterson) starting to get Children's nursery rhymes in the titles. (http://www.jamespatterson.com/books_alex_cross.php#.UigpyNKR...)

Cal Murphy (by Jack Patterson) uses Cross in the title - "Cross Hairs", "Cross the Line", "Triple Cross". (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Patterson/e/B0098F2E48/ref=ntt_...) (This last one feels odd - the author name is close to James Paterson, and the series titling uses a word ('cross') that happens to be the name of the James Paterson protagonist.