Google's Arguably Deceiving Project 10 to the 100th

Google Inc. announced a few weeks ago their new Project 10^100 (which is, by the way, a numeric amount that is called a googol) in order to celebrate their 10th birthday. In promoting the project, Google is willing to award $10 million to fund ideas that can "change the world, in the hope of helping as many people as possible." But in actuality, it's not as philanthropic as it looks.

The first time I had heard about it, I began thinking of my own ideas in hopes of winning the $10 million award. But after browsing through the official Project 10 to the 100th FAQ section, I discovered that not a single penny is awarded to the author of the idea. According to Google, the author gets nothing but "good karma." Unbelievable...

Anyway, so that people think I am not Google bashing, I will instead provide readers' comments I found on other sites talking about the ridiculous campaign.

This first comment is well-said and effectively sums up the whole issue.

"I also believe in "good karma" but of course even in non profit organization people's time and skills are recognized and rewarded with a paycheck for the simple reason that we all have a mortgage to pay and at least one mouth to feed. I truly believe that a real incentive not just "good karma" will help bring a lot more people together, and will exponentially add to the success of this philanthropic endeavor. Anyone who contributes to making life easier or of better quality for others deserves tangible recognition; just like Google's co-founders have been rewarded by much more than good karma for creating a great search engine, someone who improves/saves a life via this vehicle should not be denied this basic recognition right. I think Google is really doing its little philanthropic project a major disfavor by completely disregarding the author of the idea; ultimately this is great publicity for Google and it stands to benefit quite a bit from this, regardless of what they might claim. Lets be honest if it where about "good karma" you would think Google could afford a lot more than $10 million to change the world, I think it has something to do with dollars and publicity."

Or in the words of another...

"Google will take your idea, have a third party develop it, and then probably sell it or find a way to make some money off of it, while you get just good karma? You don't even get a portion of the winnings if you win, that goes to the company that is going to do the work.

Google is getting/is evil, and this project is no different."