If I remember right from when I worked there (years ago), the wording is "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." I can definitely see interpretations of that which require direct and open access to the raw data and others which just require universal and useful access to an assistive/suggestive product or service that leverages the data.

To be clear, I prefer the first interpretation, but I realize open data geeks (and those who would use the raw data if granted access) are far fewer than ML geeks (and those who enjoy the automagic suggestions) and the gap is only widening.

If I’m interpreting you correctly, both those approaches involve Google housing (owning?) the data.

In the early days of Google, I assumed that to organize and make accessible meant to index and link to information presented by others - and not to ‘own’ the data.

It saddens me that that interpretation is no longer correct - and perhaps never was?

I wouldn't know what the early interpretation was - I was there in 2006 as an intern plus 2011-2015 as a full-timer.

But the wording is certainly neutral on who houses and owns the data.

I'm guessing that you're right as to the early interpretation, since that's what makes sense for web search.

But other interpretations are the logical thing to think of first for some of their more recent ML-powered assist/suggest products, and the wording of the mission statement leaves product managers and architects/designers free to apply whatever interpretation makes natural sense in context.

I'm a very big user of Google Books. They've digitized a large chunk of the world's libraries and made them freely available. Despite the thousand and one ways in which they have betrayed their original principles, I am personally very grateful for this one offering of theirs.