Tweaks Made By Google Sends Critics Into Orbit

Google Inc. occasionally features light-hearted doodles on its colorful home-page logo to commemorate special occasions. But now they are drawing criticism from conservatives for not being more patriotic.

The Mountain View, Calif., company bathes its logo in stars and stripes every Independence Day, but last week's decision to honor the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch - the second "g" in Google was replaced with a drawing of the Soviet satellite - is being blasted by some conservatives. Not only did Google honor an achievement by a totalitarian regime that was our Cold War enemy, they griped, but it did so without having ever altered its logo to commemorate U.S. military personnel on Memorial Day or Veterans Day. Google regularly gives other U.S. holidays the logo treatment, including Halloween, Thanksgiving and St. Patrick's Day (but not for Columbus Day, which was Monday). What's more, the company's employees contribute overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates. While the company's new political action committee has given nearly half of its $22,100 in contributions this year to Republicans, 93% of the $141,000 donated by individual employees went to Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission data provided by CQ Moneyline. Google's decision to self-censor its search engine in China to comply with the Communist government's online rules also has drawn condemnation from Republicans.