Google has declared itself as the champion of the “open web” while maintaining a moat around its cashcows, search and advertising, which it guards in the most un-open way possible. Google funnels billions from its proprietary and closed businesses into a systematic effort to commoditize myriad industries with free products to lure users into its perfectly commercial sphere of personal-data-for-advertising-dollars exchange. That Google has been able to persuade the technorati to swallow this under the glow of ‘open web’ is all the more remarkable.