Google Apologizes For Copying Yahoo’s Internet Explorer 7 Page
Yesterday I pointed out Google’s Internet Explorer 7 site that promoted an “Optimized for Google” version of the browser. It looked remarkably similar to Yahoo’s so my original thought was that Microsoft offered some sort of generic template that people could use.
Last night I received an email from a member of Yahoo!’s public relations team and it pointed me to Jeremy Zawodny’s blog. As the email states Google straight-up copied Yahoo’s page:
Saw your post about Google’s IE7 page, and just wanted to let you know that Yahoo! designed its original IE7 landing page - it’s not based on a template from Microsoft. If you look closely at the Google landing page, you’ll notice that it uses the same graphic with the Yahoo! toolbar, and the red “Y!” is blurred out.
That really sucks for Yahoo! but it looks like Google has now changed the page to look more unique (as pictured above). Matt Cutt’s, a Google employee, has mentioned the event on his personal blog saying:
I can only speak for me personally on this. If Jeremy looked into it and says that it wasn’t a template from Microsoft, I believe him. That would mean that the Yahoo! page was used as a template for Google’s IE7 promo page. I can’t say why someone at Google would decide to do that, but to the Yahoo! UI designer whose page was copied: my apologies. In my personal opinion, it sucks when someone else copies a page layout without attribution.
I am glad that Google corrected the issue so quickly but I am still in awe that they even did it in the first place. I guess even the largest companies look for ways to cut corners when they don’t think it will be noticed.
Thanks to the people who also mentioned this in the comments in the last article!
Enjoyed the post? Subscribe to our feed to get a daily dose of CyberNet!
Tags: Google
Related Posts:
- Maxthon Releases Version 1.5.1 Of Its Internet Explorer Browser
- Firefox Becomes The First Third-Party Program On Google’s Homepage
- Find As You Type In Internet Explorer
- Google, Like Yahoo, Has Optimized Version Of IE 7
- Google Makes It Easy To Add Their Search To IE7
I guess it only takes greater man to apologize rather than anyone else.
Maybe it was done intensionally, some kind of Google designer’s crazy joke?
Someone’s getting demoted
What you’ve got to remember is this isn’t Google’s fault, it’s its employees. Obviously one of the employees felt like cutting corners, but it backfired on him.