Google has gone back to its roots and, in the style of HP, has bought the house and garage in which founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin first established the company. The company has not said how much it paid for the property.

Page and Brin rented the garage from Susan Wojcicki, then a friend of an ex of Brin's, now vice president of product management at Google. She needed some money to help pay her mortgage and for five months Brin and Page made the garage their second home.

According to reports they also helped themselves to plenty of frozen pizza from Wojcicki's freezer.

The garage has, apparently, already become something of a tourist attraction. Google asked reporters not to publish the house address because bus tours have already become a local nuisance.

Google says it is not sure what it will use the house for. A spokesman said: "We plan to preserve the property as a part of our living legacy."

We can only hope that the search empire is content with mimicking HP in this one aspect, and does not feel the need to start rifling through people's phone records or sending spyware-laden emails to journalists. ®