I guess it's becoming fashionable to think of Google as the new Microsoft.
How is my question consistent with things people have said about Microsoft? It's not when they bought it, it's how they reacted to Gabriel contacting them about it.
It's that somehow Google is using unfair advantages to beat their competition.
And the timing of it definitely matters. It shows their decision to acquire the domain was not influenced by competition.
As for how they reacted to Gabriel, I'm not sure what their specific reaction was but I probably wouldn't give up a 1-word, 4-letter domain regardless of the state of the competition. The fact that the competition decided to name their company something I own would be unfortunate for them. Too bad. So sad. SOL.
My god, I never said they acquired the domain because of the then-nonexistent DuckDuckGo nor did I suggest they give it up to them. All I'm saying is the domain was sitting there idle, Gabriel asked them for it, and they told him no and made it point to their own search page instead. They had every right to say no but it seems like a conscious act of meanness on their part to suddenly make it point to themselves when their competitor asked to buy it. It's kind of like adding insult to injury (rather denial).
Why are you so aggressively set on defending Google when I'm not really even attacking them?
"Does it seem to violate their "Don't be evil" mantra to anybody else? This was clearly a conscious decision to confuse people."
With your statement, you're implying malicious intent. I'm stating that I don't see it together with substance to back up my statement. That's not "aggressively set on defending Google." That's simply trying to clearly make an argument.
Of they just didn't realize they had such a cool domain until Gabriel contacted them. Google is a big company and it's entirely possible for things to fall between the cracks in an organization of that size.
I guess it's becoming fashionable to think of Google as the new Microsoft. Sometimes it's fair. In this case, it's not.