How about the carbon footprint of [insert arbitrary company]'s users while using their services?

It is totally nonsense and doesn't help at all.

Forgiving my own displeasure at google-everything, I think I can at least appreciate that they might not be all evil all the time – perhaps they could even influence people in a positive way?

Also excuse the related tangent and cherry picking, I am not condoning most of China's behaviour, but being big and bad doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot produce positive effects. [0]

[0]https://www.wsj.com/ad/article/chinaenergy-powerhouse

I am not talking about Google specifically. It is true for any company, you are right, but I don't think you can claim to be have offset your carbon footprint completely until you account for the global impact of your business on this planet.

To give an extreme example, how would you react if Exxon Mobil were to claim to be carbon-neutral because they offset the footprint of all their datacenters, offices, drilling facilities, and supply chain? I am sure you would call bullshit, as their whole business is about extracting carbon from the earth to put it back in the atmosphere.

I just think it is unfair to claim that you have zero impact on this planet until you really offset it for real.

People seems to be upset because they misinterpreted an an ambiguous statement.

Google should include the cost of user computers running JavaScript.

They don't have control over that. They can only ensure the energy required to run the services are offset.

Well if they wouldn't be constantly trying to phone home data and use more static technologies they would reduce users footprint. Although you are right they can't really prevent their users to (ab)use its services (especially if they want to preserve privacy).

They do to some extent, albeit not really in a measurable way. They could improve the battery usage of their apps, optimize power on Android, and make their services less addictive.

That would be a fair argument against, say, an oil company claiming its operations (ie distribution) are carbon neutral while ignoring the use to which people put its products. But most tech firms' products encourage users to stay at home on the couch and produce less carbon, if anything. Probably the only Google product that encourages users to produce CO2 is Maps.

Youtube, too; e.g I could take a walk in the neigh-borough or watch a car racing video (where Google pays for the gas by sharing ad revenues).

Also, network traffic is about 40% (estimated) of the energy consumption of IT according to the statistics I've seen.

I could bet that this is wrong. Network taking almost equal energy as CPU does not seem correct. Any sources?

Network traffic makes sense if you consider that network traffic is active usage - and the routers, switches, infra all need power. Whereas a typical user's CPU sits idle most of the time.

Idle CPU still uses a ton of energy.

Even a laptop in sleep mode uses ~2W, and a desktop - 6-10W. Average wifi router uses constant 6W if I'm not mistaken.

You should get your money back if your sleeping laptop uses 2W. At that rate, a MacBook Pro would drain its battery in only one day. Correctly-working laptops should draw about 100-200mW and their batteries should last for a week or more.

6-10W kinda sucks for an active desktop, much less a sleeping one. My development system while in S0 currently measures 3.04W (of course, ~30W when running hard).