Google will protest SOPA using home page

[GBond]

Google will protest SOPA using home page

[jaysonelliot]

Google going dark would have been the most dramatic protest, of course, but I applaud them for this action.

I can't imagine Google taking the financial hit that would come from going dark for 24 hours, and I'm not certain how much more impactful that would have been, anyway.

I wonder, though, if they plan to include the SOPA message on their results pages as well? The Google home page is only seen by people who begin their searches at Google.com instead of using a browser toolbar or one of the myriad affiliate search boxes out there.

[Symmetry]

Even not considering financials, I'd expect at least 1 death from people looking up medical information and not being able to get it if Google was entirely gone for a whole day.

EDIT: Of course most reasonable people will contact a medical professional rather than an internet search engine, that's why I guessed "at least 1" instead of "at least a couple hundred".

[j_baker]

You know, this actually makes me wonder what the impact on the economy would be if Google went down for a day. I would imagine a lot of people would just use Bing for a day (which would probably be terrible for Google in and of itself), but I wonder how many peoples' jobs would be temporarily halted due to not having Google and not knowing of any other search engine to use.

For that matter, I wonder what the economic impact of Wikipedia shutting down will be. It's just one of those things that I haven't imagined a world without. On the bright side, I suppose that there might be a positive benefit to the economy if Reddit shuts down.

[klausa]

I think you overestimate number of people who use searchboxes int their browsers - how many times we saw stories about people typing 'facebook.com' into Google?

I think the majority of users, especially non-technical (and I think majority of people that should see this message fall in this category), still uses google.com as a place to begin their searches.

[Kadrith]

I would love to see two things from Google:

  * Change the logo; even just a black bar through the middle since the logo gets a lot of attention.

  * For any SOPA/PIPA supporter's site in their results, mark it in some way.  Don't block it, but indicate that this is a supporter and use that to demonstrate what SOPA/PIPA might do.  This allows people to ignore those sites if they want, but does not remove them from the index or cause any permanent harm.

[gojomo]

'Most dramatic' ≠ 'most effective', at least not always.

For example, tantrums are dramatic, but can create more resentment than sympathy.

[LisaG]

Google really should go dark, even if it is only for a few hours. Policymakers need to understand that if the internet gets broken, it will have repercussions well outside of silicon valley.

[sehugg]

Google would likely face wrath from investors, as well as breaking agreements with partners. Their legal department would need therapy.

[knorby]

It will give greater legitimacy to other sites protesting, just from news reports including google on the list of companies taking part. I'm guessing the news stories will end of having much more influence than whatever google links to.

[bad_user]

Google going dark would basically turn the Internet off, unlike Wikipedia, as Google is to normal people a proxy to the whole Internet.

They've got a big responsibility on their shoulders and as much as I hate SOPA, Google going dark would be completely irresponsible and I would think less of them.

[fauldsh]

Tenuous link (was mentioned in the article)

I find it more astonishing that Rupert Murdoch would have the gall to say on twitter: "So Obama has thrown in his lot with. Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery. -"

[wmeredith]

It's a mix of both gall and ignorance made really dangerous with a massive dose of power.

[drivebyacct2]

There are just so many things that don't make sense in this statement, not a single bit of it is unworthy of criticism. Any other time a Rupert-type or Republican would chastize Obama for not supporting the startup "innovators" that are also against this bill. I'm not sure what "paymaster" is meant to imply and "software creators" are by-and-large against SOPA/PIPA. Then of course the entire piracy = theft discussion. Sigh. I don't know about gall, I think it's purely ignorance, maybe just enabled by gall.

[jasonjei]

An easy way to show solidarity with SOPA protesters is whenever the main Google page is loaded (not when a query is already passed to Google) is to have it load black with some text saying how this is Internet might look like if SOPA is passed, followed by it fading into the normal google page, with maybe some text below the bar to contact legislators within the local area.

[polshaw]

They should replace their logo with a big black rectangle. This would get everyone's attention (not just google.com visitors).

They don't need to commit commercial suicide by shutting off their site ('hey, bing isn't that bad..'), but this is pretty weak.

[Garbage]

From the post:

In response to questions about how the protest link would be displayed on the page, all Google would say is that the link would not replace the company logo.

[mortenjorck]

I really hope they do a SOPA doodle tomorrow.

[rnernento]

I'm starting to get the feeling tomorrow is going to be crazy. I don't think congress is prepared for this. Their approval rating already abysmal, and I predict this will put a LOT of people into action.

[reidmain]

Looks like those tech illiterate Senators brought a knife to gun fight.

Actually it is more like they are duelling with their ammo supplier and then are surprised when the don't have any bullets.

[SATANRULES]

Anyone gone to Craigslist lately? They've put up a black wall with info about pipa/sopa visible for 20 seconds. Then a link to the regular site appears.

[manojlds]

IMO, having some notice on the home page is not a great deal at all. I rarely every go to the Google home page. I just use the search bars on the browsers. The rare time is to see some doodle.

Google should go dark like Wikipedia. That will have the biggest impact, and of course, the impact will be much bigger than the Wikipedia black out.

[cosmez]

do you think of yourself as an average computer user? almost everyone i know use google's homepage as their personal homepage.

Of course it will have an impact, just like a normal doodle

[jebblue]

Wonder if Google and Wikipedia would consider going dark to show support for the right legislation to stop online thieves.

[rometest]

now it will be like who will do the blackout next. Facebook, twitter, yahoo, aol etc

[nextparadigms]

So what will Bing do tomorrow?

[baddox]

I doubt anyone will check.

[sebphfx]

something more original: Google should put their background black and leave the text black,so people would have to highlight the text to be able to see. It would be like trying to find candles in a real blackout!

[Kroms]

This makes me uncomfortable. The implications of a corporation - especially a corporation as big as Google - being actively involved in politics are scary. You may find yourselves cheering for them now, but what about the day Google is involved in something against your interests or political views? This move makes that a possibility.

[ender7]

The sad fact is that corporations are already deeply involved in this bill - where do you think it came from in the first place?

[Pewpewarrows]

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but corporations are the leading driving force behind almost all of USA's politics. I can count on one hand the number of Representatives and Senators combined that have NOT been bought and paid for by giant corporations. The same goes for non-trivial pieces of legislation passing through either the House or Senate with corporate sponsorship.

[msg]

I hate to break it to you, but there is no Santa Claus, corporations are heavily involved in politics, and Google using their logo for political advocacy does not open up the gates to a new era of corporate political activism.

If anything, internet corporations are showing up late to the game.

[jiggy2011]

I think the point is: Suppose google blackout for a day, since they have never done this before afaik it will give them insight into how crucial their service is (or isn't) to the population in general.

If they saw that modern society could not function without them then they could then effectively hold legislators over a barrel and say "pass law X or we turn it off", these laws might not always be things we would like.

Of course if they pulled that enough times I'm sure another engine would come along and replace them.

This is a problem I have with centralized software and data that is proprietary to one company, I imagine Google and Facebook could legally do some pretty nasty things if they wanted to.

[SarahSmiles]

Weak. Google should participate in the blackout.

Twitter seems to not care about SOPA, but Google claims to be actively working against SOPA - they should walk the walk if they are going to talk the talk. With this "message" on their homepage (which as jaysonelliot pointed out is not even seen by many people) they get the branding of being in support of an open web but don't have to actually take action the way Wikipedia, Boing Boing, etc are going to.

Just window dressing from the PR department. Disappointing but not at all surprising.

[mdwrigh2]

> With this "message" on their homepage (which as jaysonelliot pointed out is not even seen by many people)

How is 64% of their traffic (89 million visitors in 2009)[1] not "many people"?

[1]: http://blog.compete.com/2009/04/21/home-page-visitors-top-pu...