>It's really only Google and Facebook that get the vitriol.
The way I read it, it seems as though it's unfair that they get away with doing questionable stuff when "others do worse". Why yes, if you have nefarious intentions but no power to act them out, people are going to throw less "vitriol" at you than if you do act them out.
I always keep in mind the motto Google carried when they stepped in: "Do no evil". I used to love Google back then, but they were something else.
They killed good products that people loved, they abused their trust, they are what they are not because they keep on innovating but because of their current size. They killed a lot of small fries who in aggregate could have given us a lot more value.
Nobody cares or talks about any of these things. But when Google does the online equivalents, it's suddenly the next coming of Hitler (literally, look at the comment I replied to above!).
This isn't really proportionate, it doesn't make sense, and it's quite offensive to people who work or used to work at these firms.