14 DAY TRIAL // Google has always tried to celebrate or commemorate certain events from every corner of the world by placing a new logo, also known as doodle, on the official page of the search engine. Today, after approximately one year since two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped at the Lebanon border, the Mountain View company decided to join the alliance for bringing them back by placing a blue and white ribbon on the official page of Google Israel. This is not much but as Hanan Cohen reported on the Google Blogoscoped forum, multiple Israeli websites decided to replace their usual background with a black one in order to commemorate the event.
"One year passed since the Hizbullah kidnapped two Israeli sodiers on the Lebanon border. Today, some Israeli sites will display a black homepage to commemorate the event and support the struggle to bring them back. Google Israel had chosen to show a small blue and white ribbon on its homepage linking to a search for the Hebrew Bible phrase "thy children shall come again to their own border," the Google Blogoscoped forum member wrote.
Very often, Google avoided getting involved in this kind of matters because the political and the religious problems can damage the company's image and have a big impact over the search giant's evolution in certain countries. However, Ido Kenan, another Google Blogoscoped forum member, wrote that Rachel Whetstone, Google spokeswoman, considered this is not a controversial approach of the matter as most of the Americans agreed with the release of the prisoners.
"Google's spokeswoman, Rachel Whetstone, told us that Google was happy to make those changes to their Israeli homepage to support the efforts to return the captured soldiers and pay respect to their families," the forum member wrote.
If you want to find more information about this case and read others' opinions, you can check the Google Blogoscoped forum thread available here.