Google Adds Privacy Link
In a move that could perhaps only be compared to Frank Marshall’s brilliant 23rd move [Qc3-g3] against Stepan Levitsky at the 1912 German Open Championships in Breslau, Google performed the “checkmate” of web design by adding a privacy link to their search home page. But not without a catch.
Something had to be sacrificed in order to keep the word count for the search giants portal at the magical number of 28.
Up until last week Google had resisted adding the privacy link in part because “every bit counts” when determining how quickly its home page loads, given that load speed and user satisfaction are strongly related, so strongly related in fact, that adding even a single word could possibly have thrown the entire search system askance.
However, in a move of sheer brilliance, Google decided to remove the unnecessary “Google” contained within the copyright notice at the bottom of its home page, and replace it with the privacy link.
And that’s just what Google did last week, more or less. Though the copyright symbol and date remain, the bottom text, which used to read “©2008 Google“, now reads “©2008 – Privacy“.
Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience, said in her blog post that Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin would “agree to the change only if the number of the words on the home page (28) remained unchanged.” So the word “Google” was dropped because it was implied.
Bravo Google, bravo!
