Microsoft’s Chief Blogger Robert Scoble pulled a anti-Google post from his blog yesterday. I’m reprinting it here (thanks to the Bloglines cache) for you to peruse…
Google employees push sites that only work with one browser
By scobleizer on Blog Stuff
Ahh, let me get this right. Google is pushing a single-browser solution. And their employees are advocating putting code on your site that’ll turn off Internet Explorer.
I wonder what the reaction from the blogosphere would be if Microsoft tried such a strategy against Firefox?
At least now you know why I said Google would be nuts to do its own browser.
By the way, who has the most standards-based search engine? Hint: it’s not Google. Do a “view source” on MSN and Google and you’ll see the answer.
Oh, and who has a cookie that lasts until 2038? Ahh, yes, even Google knows the answer to this one!
You can learn that and lots of other things about Google on the Google Watch site.
First off, the most angry person from this post is probably Daniel Brandt, Google Watcher, who loses a very positive link from a very popular blog. Secondly, I believe Robert pulled the post because he believed he had erroneously portrayed Jason Shellen as advocating sabotage of Internet Explorer users. While Shellen’s linking to some code that breaks sites in IE and using code that encourages IE users to switch to Firefox, its not exactly on behalf of Google, and I haven’t seen anything to indicate Shellen as part of the contingent within Google that is working on the Firefox browser.
So, while Scoble’s post probably implied far too much, I think it still bears worth reading. I haven’t been blogging as long as the Scobleizer, but I haven’t pulled a post yet, and I think a simple use of the tag would have been sufficient. Scoble raises some good points of the conflict of interest of a Google employee advocating anti-IE trickery, even if Google doesn’t technically own Firefox, and the employee isn’t involved in FF development.
If a Microsoft employee proposed a “Firefox sucks” banner campaign that was only hidden when the [if IE] tag was used, it would make Slashdot, and we all know it. This isn’t the same, and no one is saying that (yet), but I hope this issue gets the proper debate it deserves.
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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