Google Says No ‘Doodle For You!’
It started with the perceptive ProPakistani people noticing how Google has never had an Islam themed doodle on their homepage, and Dr. Awab picked up the discussion the next day.
I personally think that Google not showing any Doodles for Islamic events has something to do with their “Do No Evil” policy 
Seriously though, while Google can not be forced to cater to each segment of their customer base, especially since doodling is the secondary responsibility of the guy who creates them, but given that
- Google has doodles for other religious holidays
- Muslims form a huge chunk of their customer base – much larger than, say, Pakistanis, or people who like Escher
- Google has doodles for birthdays and other days that only a tiny portion of the world celebrates
- Google is a PUBLIC company (which does matter)
… by not having a doodle for a single Islamic event/holiday so far, the message they are sending out, to many Muslims, says something like ‘We are the biggest website around and are a global company, but we don’t really care about the Muslim culture and won’t even consider it to be worth a doodle’ – really bad marketing.
Of course we will all continue to use the Google services, we can’t live without them, but this insignificant message will stick to the back of the minds of the sensitive Muslims who have noticed.
Some have commented that Google probably does not want to ‘offend’ Muslims, which might have made sense if they wanted to publish the image of a pig, or a prophet, on the Eid doodle, but they are (probably) not that stupid.
Another critical commenter said that it is a non-issue and not worth wasting time on. I think what makes it a ‘real issue’ is that Google gets millions of hits daily. Any doodle featured on their homepage makes people search and find out more about that particular event/person, just because the Google brand showcased that person/event. Given the negative image of Islam that the ‘infidels’ have developed and their lack of knowledge/interest about Islam, a few million searches on Eid and Islam can really make a big difference in informing people about Islam and the 57 varieties that it comes in (besides the bitter and dangerous Taleban kind).
Here’s a list of the official Google doodles so far [link]
and another video for you ‘diaper-heads’ to conclude this comment-that-turned-into-a-post:
Perhaps a pro-active Muslim designer should create a doodle for Eid and send it to Google and see what happens.
Thanks man! for joining hands…
Thanks man for being a part of the revolution…
Point well raised, we need to show our strength considering the market that we make. But this is not the first time Muslims are discriminated at such scale. Previously many Muslim women raise similar issue with yahoo avatar. As they do not provide with the option of a veil or head scarf.
[...] Athar at ReallyVirtual writes: I personally think that Google not showing any Doodles for Islamic events has something to [...]
[...] Athar at ReallyVirtual writes: I personally think that Google not showing any Doodles for Islamic events has something to [...]
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@ammar Interesting observation.
@Bites85 I would say it’s more of a ‘nudge’ than a ‘revolution’, but an important one nonetheless – Muslims have been alienated enough already.
[...] Athar do ReallyVirtual [es] escreve: I personally think that Google not showing any Doodles for Islamic events has [...]
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nice analysis..emphatic!
Does anybody has contacts in the media? Get this matter positively in the print? We should make a case logically why Google should consider it and how it would help it gain more respect in the Muslim world.
Can anybody help highlight this and the Kashmir Mapmaker issue [ http://www.buzzvines.com/Google-Earth-Maps-Azad-Jammu-Kashmir-Google-MapMaker-Kashmir-India-Kashmir-Map-Google-Street-Maps-Road-Map ] to conventional media?
And, once again, please be positive in creating a voice in whatever medium you can!
If the google doodle doesn’t live up to the standard, and makes one simple mistake in doing a muslim doodle… everyone will crash down on google, blame them for doing something wrong.
I can see why they do not take these kind of risks. but I don’t think it is because they are biased.