Google 2010 Annual Report Download - page 24

and enhance the “Google” brand, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our business, operating results,
and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected. Maintaining and enhancing our brand will depend
largely on our ability to be a technology leader and continue to provide high-quality products and services, which
we may not do successfully.
Acquisitions and investments could result in operating difficulties, dilution, and other harmful
consequences that may adversely impact our business and results of operations.
Acquisitions are an important element of our overall corporate strategy and use of capital, and we expect our
current pace of acquisitions to continue. These transactions could be material to our financial condition and results
of operations. We also expect to continue to evaluate and enter into discussions regarding a wide array of potential
strategic transactions. The process of integrating an acquired company, business, or technology has created, and
will continue to create, unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. The areas where we face risks include:
• Diversion of management time and focus from operating our business to acquisition integration
challenges.
• Implementation or remediation of controls, procedures, and policies at the acquired company.
• Integration of the acquired company’s accounting, human resource, and other administrative systems,
and coordination of product, engineering, and sales and marketing functions.
• Transition of operations, users, and customers onto our existing platforms.
• Cultural challenges associated with integrating employees from the acquired company into our
organization, and retention of employees from the businesses we acquire.
• Liability for activities of the acquired company before the acquisition, including patent and trademark
infringement claims, violations of laws, commercial disputes, tax liabilities, and other known and unknown
liabilities.
• Litigation or other claims in connection with the acquired company, including claims from terminated
employees, customers, former stockholders, or other third parties.
• In the case of foreign acquisitions, the need to integrate operations across different cultures and
languages and to address the particular economic, currency, political, and regulatory risks associated with
specific countries.
• Failure to successfully further develop the acquired technology.
• Failure to obtain required approvals from governmental authorities under competition and antitrust laws
on a timely basis, if it all, which could, among other things, delay or prevent us from completing a
transaction, or otherwise restrict our ability to realize the expected financial or strategic goals of an
acquisition.
Our failure to address these risks or other problems encountered in connection with our past or future
acquisitions and investments could cause us to fail to realize the anticipated benefits of such acquisitions or
investments, incur unanticipated liabilities, and harm our business generally.
Future acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of our equity securities, the incurrence of debt,
contingent liabilities, or amortization expenses, or write-offs of goodwill, any of which could harm our financial
condition. Also, the anticipated benefit of many of our acquisitions may not materialize.
A variety of new and existing U.S. and foreign laws could subject us to claims or otherwise harm our
business.
We are subject to a variety of laws in the U.S. and abroad that are costly to comply with, can result in negative
publicity and diversion of management time and effort, and can subject us to claims or other remedies. Many of
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