Google backed down… really?

Almost a month ago we reported Google’s reluctance to comply with Californian law (Google’s battle of beauty versus law). The California Online Privacy Protection Act states that a commercial website that collects data about it’s users must, “conspicuously post its privacy policy on its Web site”. We stated,

“So, it turns out that for five years the entire world hasn’t noticed Google has been breaking the law. Google’s home page footer contains links to ‘Advertising Programs’, ‘Business Solutions’ and ‘About Google’.”

Our belief was that it would be unlikely that Google would back down. But today we noticed a tiny ‘Privacy’ link on Google’s home page. Blink and you’ll miss it, but it’s there. It took 5 years and billions of page views for anyone to question the lack of a privacy link. But it’s all over now, Google have made the change and it is there for all to see. Our guess is, if people didn’t notice it wasn’t there for 5 years then it’s unlikely they will notice it now.

Magnification glass please.