They started off as a search engine with the motto “don’t be evil”. Let’s get our facts straight before you try to talk me down like I don’t know anything.

Google was selling ads about 4 years before their IPO when the "Don't Be Evil" motto was first revealed to the public. There is a "History of Google" page on Wikipedia if you want to brush up on the facts and timeline.

The fact remains that they're now an advertising company. This was their monetization model and how they've amassed 90%+ of their wealth.

You can fiddle with your security however you want. I settle for "good enough" with things that aren't Chrome, because my time isn't worth analyzing each individual cookie on a page to get the info I am looking for. Firefox and uBlock Origin are a good enough layer of protection.