I don't know how "understand everything there is to know about everyone" is substantially less evil, especially when entirely avoiding Google is effectively impossible.

I should have picked a better word! "Outwardly" probably wasn't the right word there. Google is less... bald-facedly evil, perhaps? Less overtly evil?

Microsoft's hardline "screw the open web, and buy a Windows and Office license every n years while we ensure we have no competitors by any means necessary" modus operandi in the 1990s was just so blatantly unfriendly.

Google's course is more... stealthy.

Yeah, I won't defend Microsoft. I was honestly convinced for several years that we were descending into a dark age of computing.