> However, the existence of pirates is a stitch in my craw, particularly when any schoolmarm typing the name of my software into Google is prompted to try stealing it instead:

I wonder whether Google, in its Don't Be Evil era, ever considered what they should do about software piracy, and what they decided.

I'd guess they would've decided to either discourage piracy, or at least not encourage it.

In the screenshot, the Google search query doesn't say anything about wanting to pirate, yet Google is suggesting piracy, a la entrapment.

(Though other history about that user may suggest a software piracy tendency, but still, Google knows what piracy seeking looks like, and they special-case all sorts of other topics.)

Is the ethics practice to wait to be sued or told by a regulator to stop doing something?

Or maybe they anticipate costs and competition for how they operate, and lobby for the regulation they want, so all they have to do is be compliant with it, and be let off the hook for lawsuits?