Harold Feld has created a hilarious but otherwise quite believable analogy of Google with a certain type a bacteria, T.Gondii:
A great explanation of behaviour.For those unfamiliar with T. Gondii, it goes through two stages. In stage one, it can exist in any mammal. But for reproduction, it needs to be inside a cat. So T. Gondii alters the behavior of mice. Mice infected with T. Gondii have their brain receptors flipped so that they find the smell of cat urine attractive. When they find a cat, they respond with aggressiveness instead of hiding, rushing out to fight the cat. The cat, of course, is very happy to devour the mouse. It does not even notice the protozoa cavorting inside it. If it did, it would probably say "as long as it keeps bringing me mice, why should I care that it's using me to reproduce."T. Googlii is quite similar. It needs to get to us to "reproduce" (make money). To do this, it must alter the behavior of the platform providers so that we consumer kitties can provide T. Googlii with what it needs to reproduce. And while this no doubt appears parasitic from the mouse/carrier point of view, it looks much more like commensalism from the perspective of the consumer/cat.
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