Google users were disappointed to find a doodle honoring a Japanese Go player Honinbo Shusaku on his 185th birth anniversary on the search engine giant’s UK homepage rather than something that recognized the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Google’s UK homepage doodle for June 6th initially displayed an image of Honinbo Shusaku, a professional player of the traditional Chinese game Go; however, it was when Google realised its mistake quickly took down the image and replaced it with a link to maps, photos and letters about the Normandy landings.
The link to D-Day material takes users to the search engine’s Cultural Institute which shows content on the Normandy landings and access to more than 400 records including five new exhibits, features, documents and photos from museums in the UK, US and France.
The doodle goof-up was criticised by users who took their anger to social platforms. “What were you thinking #Google?” asked one.
In response, Peter Barron, Google’s director of communication apologised saying that “We always intended to highlight a new exhibition of imagery and archive material commemorating D-Day on our homepage.”
“Unfortunately a technical error crept in and for a short period this morning an international doodle also appeared. We’re sorry for the mistake, and we’re proud to honour those who took part in D-Day.”
The doodle concept took shape way back in 1998 when Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, replaced the second ‘o’ in Google with a stick figure as a message to users that they were out of the office.
