My recollection is that Google of that time still believed its own "Dont' be Evil" mantra, and so did its users.

DejaNews was going down, and Google with their buckets of money and great technology stepped in to save it. The initial expectation was that it'd just keep going, maybe with better integration of Usenet content with Google's search (which was a desirable thing, because so much history and detail was locked up in Usenet archives).