Is Google a centralized or decentralized company?

Transnational

Google can be characterized as a transnational company because it has offices located in 17 countries, which mainly consists of sales offices. These subsidiaries report back to Google's HQ in the United States or Europe. Decision making mainly comes from their United States based HQ. The image below shows the location of all Google offices.

In order to comply with the varying laws of these countries, several versions of Google restrict very specific keyword searches. According to American law, any copyright owner can require material to be removed via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, whereas under French and German law, for example, hate speech and Holocaust denial are illegal. Google complies with these laws by banning keyword searches related to these terms. Google's Terms of Service allow it to comply with the laws of any one country, providing information that was originated (or that Google stores) in another country. Any data stored on Google is therefore subject to being turned over to any country, including China. For more information regarding this subject, please view the research question Why_does_Google_adept_to_the_Chinese_government