Regarding this question, it says it was asked by "Google". I suppose a user could create an account with that name (but why? And would that not be on an obvious black list of valid usernames?) but it's greyed out as if it's something else. Screen shot in case the question gets removed:
TLDR: username can be set to anything, so why not "Google", and as pointed out in the comments, the account being greyed out us because Google doesn't have an account on M&TV.
The username
I suppose a user could create an account with that name (but why?)
Why not? Maybe user had fun, maybe something else. Why is your username Darren? Bad example as it's an actual name, but... "Google" also is, apparently. Maybe there was a lack of inspiration... We'll probably never know.
And would that not be on an obvious black list of valid usernames?
Because it's not spam, it's not rude, and nobody really expects "the" Google to be a Stack Exchange user, so not worth it, I guess. And in any case, blacklisting usernames can be tweaked to lengths and isn't that effective.
The greyed out
From Why are some usernames on comments not a link to user profiles? on main Meta:
There are several cases where the username isn't a link to the user profiles.
The screenshots below are from questions and answers, but it works exactly the same way in comments except that there isn't any gray profile picture in comments. [...]
The second case has a user name but no clickable link and no reputation or badges:
This happens in one of two cases:
- When a post gets migrated but the question author, answerers, and commenters don't have an account on the new site. The names displayed in this case is the users' actual usernames on the site where they have accounts.
