July 3, 2008
Google and the 28-word homepage
Score one to Saul Hansell of the New York Times. He recently pointed out that, in keeping with the minimalist aesthetic of its home page, Google did not provide a direct link to its online privacy policy - apparently in contravention of a California law requiring the policy to be only one click away.
Google’s initial response was to brush off the issue with the argument that anyone could easily find the policy from the search box, so that should satisfy the one-click rule.
Now it has changed its mind - though not its self-conscious minimalism. As Google exec Marissa Mayer explains today, the link to the privacy policy is now being added to Google.com - though only after first stripping another word off the home page to make room for it. Heaven forbid the wordcount should rise to 29.
[…] google’s homepage is 28KB? i save a copy. came to around 15.3 KB (15,725 bytes)… Found it… Google and the 28-word homepage __________________ Buy, Sell, Barter stuff online! Last edited by Sushubh; Today at 12:54 PM. […]
Posted by: Google links to Privacy Policy page from homepage - India Broadband Forum | July 6th, 2008 at 8:29 am | Report this commentDoes this mean they are implying that the word “privacy” and the word “google” (which was replaced) are interchangeable?
Strange that when you click through and go to the YouTube privacy link, it’s not abundantly clear that all past and present viewing history on the site could be released under a recent court order.
Posted by: Andy Warren | July 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm | Report this comment