Google Groups lets you read some Usenet newsgroups over the web, but much of the service is strictly web-based and operated solely by Google.

In 2001, Google established a historical archive of Usenet posts and also allowed users to participate in newsgroups from the Google website, a feature they called Google Groups. This service was innovative in that it gave users a simple, familiar interface to access Usenet, which was completely foreign to many users. One fact that Google has not spent much time explaining is that Google Groups is not quite the same as Usenet.

Google Groups does allow users to view archived Usenet posts and even post new messages to particular newsgroups. Google also allows users to participate in unique "Google Groups" which are web-based forums that do not follow Usenet naming conventions, and are not fed to the Usenet network. Because Google doesn't emphasize or outright acknowledge this difference, many exclusive users of Google Groups do not understand actual Usenet concepts such as newsgroup hierarchies, header information, or accepted Usenet netiquette.

Another major difference between Google Groups and true Usenet service is access to binary content. Google Groups is devoted to text-only communication and offers no access to binary newsgroups. Even if binary access was available, the web-based structure of Google Groups would likely prevent it from being a reliable service.