Only if they're hypothesis on something I care about, and not about how I can get people to click more ads or make more money for some trendy corporation.

That's the point... "to test out some hypothesis" - this is something you can do just for fun if you work at Google.

gnosis' arguments seem worth refuting. I can see how someone outside of Google would assume that using 4000 machines to scan the Internet on some whim would be a big deal. But at Google, it's not. That's why working at Google is so cool.