FREAK Shots: Is Google the Gift That Keeps Taking?

To get Google to open a major routing center in Lenoir, N.C., and bring with it 200 jobs and about $172 million in local investments, the state and local governments offered the company $200 million worth of incentives, reports The Lenoir News-Topic, including sales-tax-free electrical power and computer purchases.
When the deal was signed in 2007, some members of the community grumbled that Lenoir “gave away the farm.” Apparently, however, the giveouts continue — at least by one local restaurant, which, a blog reader tells us, got this sign from Google as a thank-you for delivering free pizza to them every Tuesday.

Addendum: A Google representative claims the company pays for its food every time it orders from a restaurant and gives the above sign to local restaurants it patronizes frequently, not as a thank-you for free food.