After complaining on Sunday that Google decided to mark Remembrance Sunday with a picture of the Cookie Monster rather than a poppy, it was suggested that we should give Google the benefit of the doubt and see if they use a poppy logo on Remembrance Day itself.

Well, today was Remembrance Day and guess what?  Yep, there was no poppy logo on Google UK this morning.  Nor on the Google USA site, Google Canada, Google Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France or Belgium where the poppy is used to commemorate fallen soldiers on the 11th of November.  In France and Belgium it’s a public holiday, such is the importance they put on Armistice Day.

Suitably enraged, I decided to take some affirmative action.  I emailed another complaint to Google’s press office, started a “viral tweet” on Twitter and got BBC Radio Shropshire talking about it.  An hour or two later I got an email from a Google PR person saying they had put a poppy under the search box.  I pointed out that the only way to get a poppy logo on the Google UK site was to view it on a mobile phone and click the “Classic” link to get the proper site.  The PR man said he would get it looked into.

At about 11:40am the poppy appeared on the Google UK site and some time afterwards a poppy Google Doodle miraculously put in an appearance in place of the normal Google logo.  People power won the day, it seems, but it shouldn’t have taken this much effort to get Google to remember our fallen soldiers.