Blake Ross, one of the guys behind Firefox, says that he no longer trusts Google after the company announced that it will promote its own products over everyone else:

Google is now displaying 'tips' that point searchers to Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa for any search phrase that includes 'calendar' (e.g. Yahoo calendar), 'blog' and 'photo sharing,' respectively. This is clearly bad for competitors, and it's also a bad sign for Google. But I generally support anything that benefits users, including monopolistic packaging. I believe, for instance, that shipping Internet Explorer with Windows was a good move. So why are tips bad for users?

First, two notes. One, Yahoo and Ask already do this, but they didn't build their businesses on the promise of being unconventionally trustworthy. And two, Google has been doing similar things for awhile. Search The Holiday and you'll get a special box pointing to reviews of and tickets for the movie. The difference is that this is still a filter on the Web; the reviews link to their sources and the tickets link to Fandango. Google may share the Fandango revenue and certainly shuts out competitors, but as a user, I get better service than I would without the box.

The tips are different-and bad for users-because the services they recommend are not the best in their class. If Google wants to make it faster and easier for users to manage events, create a blog or share photos, it could do what it does when you search GOOG: link to the best services. To prevent Google from being the gatekeeper, the company could identify the services algorithmically.