More on Google's friend or foe? schizophrenia

The Sunday NYT had a great piece on Google by Richard Siklos "A Struggle Over Dominance and Definition." The crux of the analysis is Google: mate or menace? friend or foe? to media players and others?

My favorite quote was Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer: "The truth is, what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google."

• Duh. Google is getting sued for different kinds of theft by a very wide range of property owners.

However, what I really love is how Google keeps self-redefining themselves in a way that makes net neutrality regulation more likely to apply to them in the future.

They used to say they were just a search engine.

• After acquiring YouTube Google CEO Schmidt said in his FT interview that Google was now a "distribution network."  
• Now in this article, Google continues to insert their proverbial foot deeper and deeper into their mouth.
• CEO Schmidt was quoted saying: "Ultimately our goal at Google is to have the strongest advertising network and all the world's information." [bold added for my emphasis]
• It gets even better. Google's Vice President for Content partnerships, David Eun, was also quoted using words that show Google's cluelessness of the implications of definitions in applying net neutrality regulations:
• "I would say that we are a conduit connecting our users with content and advertisers."  [bold added for my emphasis]
• Sounds more and more like they self-define Google to be a network/conduit rather than a search engine.
• (Be careful what you wish for Google. Have you checked the relative valuation difference between a network or conduit company and Google?)

Is there any "adult supervision" or someone "connecting the dots" at Google?

• When Google's Washington mission is to regulate all networks as common carriers, for forever, no matter what a network's market share, wouldn't it be smart to not be describing Google as a network or a conduit?
• Is Google so clueless or in such a bubble of unreality that they can't see how they fit into the world or might be ensnared by their own words?

When you have an amazing "levitation" valuation of $144b, a mission to organize all the world's information, whether or not the information owners approve, and a chaotic personnel model where everyone is expected to freelance on their own whims at least one fifth of their time, something tells me that the laws of physics have not been suspended permanently for Google.

• What goes up always comes down; its only a matter of when and how soft or hard a landing it is.
• When Google's growth slows at some point in the future, and it eventually will, watch out, there will be a veritable piranha frenzy to get a piece of this company. Â