Google Takes Down Japan’s Honinbo Shusaku Doodle On Google UK On D-Day, Offers Apology

The Telegraph reports Google has taken down a Google Doodle, aka Google Logo, from Google UK and some other countries, out of respect for D-Day.

The Doodle featured Japan’s Honinbo Shusaku, a top professional Go player. Go is a board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,500 years ago. The Doodle was featured on several Google home pages but never made it global, based on my tracker tools.

Google told the Telegraph that the Honinbo Shusaku Doodle had been a global one, and had been put up “in error”.

It did make it on to Google UK for a period of about 8 hours until it was removed.

Google also did place a link to the Google Cultural Institute with more details about the Normandy Landing. The link was globally rolled out on Google properties and placed under the search box. It reads, “Remembering D-Day: explore letters, photos, and maps of the Normandy landings” and links to this page.

Here is a picture of Google UK after the Doodle was removed:

Google Japan kept the Doodle for Honinbo Shusaku available throughout June 6th and pulled the logo on June 7th.

Peter Barron, the search engine’s director of communications, said the company had ” always intended to highlight a new exhibition of imagery and archive material commemorating D-Day on our home page.” “Unfortunately a technical error crept in and for a short period this morning an international doodle also appeared. We’re sorry for the mistake, and we’re proud to honor those who took part in D-Day,” he added.