Google co-founders Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin

Market domination can cause a backlash if you’re not careful. Before Bill Gates formed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and then teamed up with Warren Buffett, many consumers thought of him as the ruler of an Evil Empire. Hackers made it their goal in life to bring Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) down. Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch have long worn the same crown of thorns in the media world.

Having learned from recent history, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hopped on the philanthropy train before accusations of arrogance could catch up with their legendary success and bold self-promotion campaigns. Enter Google.org, a newly created Google subsidiary that funnels money into the nonprofit Google Foundation, other nonprofit efforts, and — here’s where it gets tricky — forprofit startups and technologies aimed at battling pollution and global warming.

The purely nonprofit Google Foundation was founded early in the company’s history, before it went public. Potential investors were told before the IPO that the company would set aside 1 percent of its profits for philanthropic efforts. Now that money will go to Google.org, which will in turn disperse it. It has already handed over $90 million to the Google Foundation, and Google’s board has approved the dispersal of $175 million per year to Google.org, which plans to spend its $1 billion endowment over the next 20 years. If this for-profit-nonprofit hybrid sounds unusual, it is — although Google is not actually the first to do it. The Omidyar Network, established in 2004 by eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) founder Pierre Omidyar, has that distinction.

Committed to “fostering individual selfempowerment on a global scale,” according to its Web site, the network funds both nonprofit and for-profit entities that promote equal access to information, tools and opportunities; rich connections around shared interests; and a sense of ownership for participants.

Still, Google.org is the first such organization to remain so closely tied to its corporate birthplace. It’s not called the Brin and Page Network; it’s Google.org. This is where some skeptics cite potential pitfalls.

Robbie Kellman Baxter, a strategy consultant with Peninsula Strategies of Menlo Park, Calif., has worked with companies such as Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL). She notes that Google.org’s biggest potential problem lies with the Google shareholders, who must be completely aligned with the goals of the company and have a clear understanding of what Google.org will be doing.