Ask HN: Odds that Google is blacked out in protest of SOPA? How about a doodle?

2 points by mkolodny 14y ago ↗ HN

Google has made their opposition to SOPA clear, yet the average American still doesn't even know what SOPA is. Blacking out their website for a day, or even just a doodle would spread awareness by many orders of magnitude.

Media companies have, understandably, shown remarkably little coverage of the potentially disastrous legislation. They also seem to be promoting the idea that SOPA/PIPA will only affect foreign websites that have nothing but illegal content.

If Google were to blackout their site for a day with a link to an explanation of SOPA, the media would have no choice but to cover it. Awareness of the act would grow exponentially. It would also be clear that SOPA won't only affect "geeks". What are the chances that this will happen?

3 comments

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polyfractal 14y ago ↗

A doodle, maybe. Blacking it out completely? I highly doubt that.

From a purely business point of view, they would stand to lose a lot of money from blacking themselves out.

Ataraxy 14y ago ↗

I don't think they would/should black it out since Google search itself serves as more of a utility for every day life.

Maybe they should invert their colors completely though. As in, make Google entirely black with messages all over the front page describing the magnitude of the problem. I'm not sure that a doodle alone would suffice though.

andrewhillman 14y ago ↗

Google is a public company and a blackout would throw off the income statement for the quarter. Share holders would not be happy, a doodle is more appropriate. When you have millions of users you I think you have to consider them first. People run businesses off the Google platform so there's a domino effect.