Festive Google

So apparently Google's hidden some Christmas easter eggs - by searching for certain terms, you get a christmas-decorated page.

If you're in the US, that is.

If you're not, apparently you don't celebrate Christmas and don't rate the decorations.

Using google.co.za, I don't get any decorations. Using google.com, I still don't get any decorations.

Which means that even though I'm using google.com, google is still tracking my location and 'customizing' the search results for me.

This is not what I want. If I'm searching from google.co.za, then it might be okay. But surely google.com should be the same for everyone? Localization can be a great tool, but it can also be an exclusionary tool.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I used to be very pro-Google, but now not so much. And I see that they've further compromised their integrity via their deal with AOL - "Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before," reports the New York Times. (via The Register).