"Fool your users while you smother the competition with good tech" is an important part to Google's success: as PaulG mentions, Google is a good example because everyone knows about them.

People partially flocked to them (me included) because of their public stance on ads, and then they played me.

Without claiming things they did the opposite from, one can't help but wonder if they would have ever succeeded? And would that have made them a story to tell at all?