GOOGLE... 10 YEARS...

Google will mark its 10th anniversary today, having accomplished what few businesses have done during such a short time span. Here are some of the milestones during the Internet titan's brief history:

Sept. 7, 1998

Google incorporated in California.

Sept. 21, 1998

Hires employee No. 1, Craig Silverstein.

February 1999

Opens first office in Palo Alto after several months operating from a garage.

June 7, 1999

Announces first round of venture capital - $25 million from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

June 26, 2000

Becomes Yahoo's default search provider, a major coup for the small company that eventually helps make it a household name.

Oct. 23, 2000

Unveils AdWords, an online advertising service that sets the stage for phenomenal financial success.

March 26, 2001

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Novell Inc., is named chairman.

July 19, 2001

"Don't be evil" is first mentioned in a meeting and later becomes Google's ethical motto - only to be frequently used against the company when decisions seem to stray from the ideal.

Aug. 6, 2001

Schmidt is named chief executive to, as many say, give young founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin adult supervision.

April 1, 2004

Starts e-mail service Gmail, highlighting its ambitions beyond search.

April 29, 2004

Files for a highly anticipated initial public offering.

Aug. 18, 2004

Goes public with a market capitalization of $23 billion, transforming thousands of its employees into paper millionaires (or billionaires, in some cases). In just over three years, the initial share price of $85 soars to $741.79, before retreating.

June 28, 2005

Release of Google aerial mapping service, Google Earth, gives users a bird's-eye view of their homes.

January 2006

A demand by the Justice Department for Google's records for millions of search engine users becomes public, raising the concerns of privacy advocates. Google successfully wages a court battle to avoid handing over the information, but the episode adds to the increasing worries about the records that the company retains about its users' behavior.

Jan. 17, 2006

Expands offline by buying dMarc Broadcasting, a radio advertising company. Print and television advertising is later added to the offline initiative, although it has so far failed to gain much traction.

Jan. 27, 2006

Eliciting scathing criticism from human rights groups and members of Congress, Google creates search engine for China that censors results about topics forbidden by the government there.

June 15, 2006

The verb "google" is added to the Oxford English Dictionary, a sign of how deeply intertwined the company has become with everyday life.

Oct. 9, 2006

To gain strength in the emerging online video arena, Google announces plans to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion.

January 2007

Fortune magazine names Google the best company to work for in its annual list in homage to the company's profligate perks - free meals and free laundry machines among them.

March 13, 2007

Viacom files $1 billion suit against Google that accuses it of allowing video piracy to flourish on YouTube.

April 13, 2007

Announces $3.1 billion deal to buy online advertising service DoubleClick, sparking complaints by public interest groups that Google is becoming too dominant in online advertising - an argument that fails to sway federal regulators, who later approve the acquisition.

June 12, 2008

Yahoo agrees to use some Google ads on its search engine, an acknowledgement that Google has won the search wars. The partnership, criticized by rival Microsoft Corp., which had attempted a takeover of Yahoo, is under review by federal regulators

Sources: Chronicle Research, Google Inc., "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture."

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