I'm wondering what people think about 'shady' or 'shadowy,' but still seemingly omni-present, companies out there and their business practices and tactics.

There are a lot of huge companes that, as big as they are, also receive a lot of harsh criticism, and often times, it's rightfully so. Legitimate criticism should never be shut out. Here are some  brief examples--

-Microsoft is well-known for its basic stance of being anti-competitive, and has strong-armmed other companies out of business, or just bought those companies. Shit, it's also not a secret that Bill Gates essentially stole the ideas he used for Windows from Apple, essentially making his whole business illegitimate to begin with, and he doesn't seem to feel bad about it. And of course, the fact that a lot of their products, usually just Windows, have a lot of exploitive holes in their programming, or otherwise, are just not near as well-programmed as they could or should be. Microsoft didn't get to where they are by being 'the best' at everything; far from it.

-Apple is known for some practices some call 'anti-competitive' as well, such as how iTunes works (or doesn't work), having very few customization options in their hardware; basically, they want you to take your machines only to Apple Stores to have them fixed. They've also had accusations of sweatshop conditions in some of their factories in China, though they resolved to change that.

-Walmart has had a lot of negative press, such as its stance against labor unions (although a lot of businesses are like  that, too, such as Target), what's referred to as 'predatory pricing,' knowingly hiring illegal aliens, having some products made through illegal or shady means, uneven health benefits, and also having, as founder Sam Walton himself once evidently described, "a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment." And of course, another huge criticism is just the fact that they keep building stores everywhere.

-Google has been accused of a lot of shady practices, such as data mining, uncertainty about information-sharing, disclosing too much or too little information to the government, and uncertain privacy status of information.

-Facebook has also been involved with shady activity or criticism, such as also data mining, their campaign against Google's privacy that was uncovered this year, lack of customer service, issues with not being  able to have accounts completely deleted, uncertain privacy, possible political censoring, the fact that they now basically own your photos you post (and probably any information you post, as well), and of course, similar to Gates's theft of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg's accused theft of the codes and ideas he ended up using for Facebook to begin with.

And so on and so on.

My basic question is, what are your thoughts about companies like these, but not limited to just my examples, and do these practices or accusations of ill practices bother you or prevent you from using these products and services? Why or why not?