Google Ignores 9/11 as Other Search Engines Commemorate Solemn Anniversary
Friday, September 11, 2009
Google is well known for the clever logos it often drapes over its home page on holidays and some anniversaries, such as the Internet behemoth's own birthday.
But on the solemn eighth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, while rivals including Ask.com and Microsoft's Bing.com offered prominent commemoration displays, it was just another day for the biggest search engine of them all.
Whereas Google made special note when Luciano Pavarotti died, the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history went unnoticed.
On Friday, Bing.com's home page appeared with an image of the Tribute in Light, the towering memorial that beams up from lower Manhattan each year in September. Ask.com offered an old image of downtown Manhattan with the Twin Towers faintly perceptible, presented "In Loving Memory," as a small link at the page's bottom says.
Google has never marked the anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa.
But it has often embraced some seemingly obscure dates — Andy Warhol's birthday, the anniversary of the first hot air balloon flight — and innocuous holidays like Valentine's Day.
Last year, on Sept. 10, Google marked the first successful run of the large hadron collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, ringing the Google logo with a drawing of the machine. The following day the company returned the page to its regular setting.
Google has long commemorated holidays like July 4, but it came under fire for perceived slights when it ignored others, such as Veterans Day. In 2007, under pressure from critics, it commemorated Veterans Day for the first time on its home page.
