I found: "Conduit can boast an exclusive deal with Google, which powers the toolbars' search box. Conduit's innovative search monetization model allows the service to be completely free and without adware, malware and spyware." 

and: "(Marketwire - December 16, 2008) - Conduit, a leading provider of website syndication solutions, today released the latest figures surrounding the vigorous growth of the Conduit Network and the corresponding surge in the number of community toolbar installations. The Conduit Network is adding more than 600 new publishers per day, and new user downloads of community toolbars have now surpassed a staggering 500,000 installs per day."

I suspect their major revenue is coming from the search deal with the Big G. I'm assuming that Google wouldn't want the flack from millions of people using one of their partners products that turned out to be evil. At least not more evil than anything Google itself might do, which in turn is dictated by their Chinese Overlords. Yes, someone's making money off it as with just about everything else on the internet. In terms of privacy, Google probably owns all our asses one way or another. I have a separate locked down browser running TOR so I don't have to explain the esthetics of midget lesbian oil wrestling to Chairman Wen.

There are tons of link pages available like http://www.3dlinks.com/ so why knock the guy for not creating another one? This is an alternative that you can use or not. Yes, the toolbar has a link to ultrasounds of Barack Obama and Bristol Palin's secret demon love child but it doesn't appear to be working - yet.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken