1Costa Rica's border error
An error of Costa Rica's border on Google Maps led to an invasion of Costa Rica by the army of Nicaragua. Google responded, saying that their Maps "shouldn't be used as a reference to decide military actions between countries".
2. A man named Robert Wiggen, who spent 3 years in prison, started a website that posts mug shots taken from police department websites and makes them easily searchable on sites like Google and then charges money to have the images removed. His own mug shot is absent from the site.
3. In August 2013, Google went down for 5 minutes and, as a result, took 40% of all internet traffic with it.
4. AT&T Charges $40-$50 less for gigabit broadband in markets where Google Fiber exists.
5. When a UK auto shop mechanic saw the Google Street View car coming his way, he staged a murder scene. Police paid the shop a visit a year later after the image was finally spotted on Street View.
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6Neopets
In 2001, Neopets was the 4th most trafficked website on the internet, 8 spots in front of Google.
7. In 2013, Google bought the GPS app "Waze" which resulted in each of the 100 employees receiving an average of $1.2 million.
8. Google paid a fine of $22.5 million for illegal data collection, $500 million for knowingly allowing fraudulent pharmacies to advertise on their site, and were accused of profiting from women sex trafficking by 38 different anti-trafficking organizations.
9. In 2010, when Google replaced their logo with playable Pacman, users spent an extra 36 seconds on the page. Assuming this time was wasted, it resulted in a $120 million loss in man hours.
10. On the day of his death, "Heath Ledger" was understandably the number 1 search on Google. Number 2 was "Keith Ledger".
11Russian stock market
Google became more valuable than Russia's entire stock market back in December 2014.
12. Google offered to buy Friendster in 2003 for $30 million. The offer was rejected and is considered to be one of the worst Silicon Valley blunders of all time.
13. Google hired a Camel to map a desert for Google StreetView.
14. British rapper M.I.A. named her debut album "Arular" after the nom de guerre of her father, who fought in his native Sri Lanka as a Tamil Tiger. Her hope - which would be realized - was that he would one day Google his old name, find her album, and reconnect with her.
15. A small, single story building (Corporation Trust Center) at 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, DE is the registered home of over 6,500 corporations and 200,000 businesses, such as Google, American Airlines, Apple, GM, Coca-Cola, KFC, Verizon Internet Services, and Deutsche Bank.
16Term Google
Google wants to stop people using the term "Google" as a verb meaning to search something up with an internet search engine. They believe that due to brand recognition, Google will become a generic term, and hence cost them the legal right to a trademark.
17. In 2005, Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar started a coordinated effort to push down their workers’ wages.
18. In 2004, Google anonymously posted math equations on billboards in Harvard Square and Silicon Valley that if solved led to a website with another equation, which in turn allowed you to submit your resume.
19. Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button loses them an estimated $110 million in ad revenue every year.
20. When there is a disputed border, Google maps tailors its maps to the claims of each country where the Internet browser is located.
21Calico
Google founded Calico, an anti-aging company designed to ultimately cure death.
22. When C-SPAN asked for illegal copies of Stephen Colbert's controversial 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner speech to be removed from Youtube, Google bought the rights to the video and thereby saved the viral videos which were already watched 2.7 million times in under 48 hours.
23. A UK teenager secretly painted a p*nis on top of his house and was caught over a year later when his parents looked at their house on Google Earth.
24. Google's Artificial-Intelligence Bot says the purpose of living is 'to live forever'.
25. Google sent a lone employee to map an entire abandoned Japanese island (Gunkanjima, Japan aka Hashima), which was once the most densely-populated place on Earth.
