The Motley Fool has been fooling around with Google’s reputation, especially in the software field, where it splashes but rarely shines. After listing Google’s recent releases and opining that … well, could sort of do better, the jesters arrive at the earnings results, due later today:

“Meanwhile, Fools have talked about some of the possibilities for Google in the near future — could it miss, and could that miss come sooner rather than later? What about the idea — recently voiced here in the virtual halls of Fooldom — that while Google has been promising lately, maybe Microsoft has been delivering?”

Ouch! Tough but true. The old hacks at Redmond are not lying down and thinking of New England. No way. Bill Gates has said he fears IBM more than Google. And well he might, in his segment of the archaosphere.

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This is a question many people are asking around the Internet right now. The reason is that Google has followed Microsoft, Yahoo and others in agreeing to limit their search results in China because of political sensitivities.

Some religious groups won’t show up, nor most mentions of the Tiananmen Square atrocities. As William Rees-Mogg puts it in today’s London Times: “Google may have felt there was no commercial alternative to agreeing to the Chinese request. That was the only way it could remain in the Chinese market.”

If you are a global player it’s hard voluntarily to stay out of the most dynamic emerging marketplace in the world. But, is that evil?

Censorship is practised online all the time. Child porn is rightly closed down and resisted. As are other socially-abhorrent themes. But that’s closing down evil, not supporting what many might see as evil oppression.

Rees-Mogg writes: “Nevertheless Google itself regrets the compromise it believes that it had to make.”

In the end it’s all about perception. Didn’t we expect more from Google than this? From the views widely expressed, I think we did. However, the counter-intuitive argument, less often put up, is persuasive. In time, the Internet and its search facilities will open up China intellectually in ways we can only guess at.

Google may yet have the last laugh, and may be able to claim that in apparently giving in to “evil” they ultimately conquered it.

“Do no evil” should remain on the slate until events prove otherwise.

In a statement of the obvious Yahoo has admitted it will never top Google in the search field, the most profitable area of online advertising.

Susan Decker, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, said: “We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google. It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.”

Danny Sullivan, editor of London-based SearchEngineWatch.com, commented: “It kind of makes you wonder about how serious they are about search. It really ought to be their goal, whether it’s realistic or not.”

Yahoo is always the dark horse, though, and sometimes it’s easier to be in second place.

Reuters reports that Google has taken back the title of most influential world brand. It pipped Apple for the top spot in 2005, while eBay’s Skype made its debut at #3.

“Google Inc, the minimalist search engine which has expanded regionally and moved into new markets areas as its price comparison service Froogle, last topped the poll in 2003, and for 2005 reclaims its top slot from Apple Computer Inc, which came in second this year. The poll does not take account of economic brand value, the dark science of assigning a financial value to brands, which regularly puts Coca-Cola’s Coke in first place.”

So, it’s Google, Apple, Skype in that order. It seems having a simple brand ending in “e” does the trick every time. And if you make that “le”, even better.