To celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens yesterday, a fanciful Google Doodle showcased some of the author's best-loved characters, but CNET asked, with Scrooge-like cynicism, "who would have thought--other than the most venal--that the company might even use its lovely doodles to, ultimately, make lovely oodles of cash?... When you click on the doodle--hoping, perhaps, for it to animate, play, sing, or generally jiggle--you are whipped straight through to the search results for Dickens. The first words that your eyes fall upon--at least in Google's dreams--are 'free Google e-books.' "
CNET speculated that while the Google Books-pointing doodle might not seem like a moneymaker, "surely, the aim is gravitate your mind and habits over to the Google eBookstore, where money is exchanged for enlightenment."