Tapolyai - 5:49 pm on Apr 25, 2005 (gmt 0)

I don't think Google is stealing from anyone per se.

Maybe inadvertently facilitating, but that is most I could think of.

As for credit instead of actual $$$, this is a well known practice with most service offering organizations.

It is cheaper to provide a $10 credit then actually giving you $10, because the $10 is already marked up with the profit, so the cost is maybe $5. So in "store credit" scenarios, you always will get less then what you lost...