An open letter to Google
Dear Google,
Why is it so difficult for you to present your sites in my language?
It's a fairly common language. I understand that a variant is even spoken in some parts of the United States of America, although Sesame Street's Big Bird calls it American
. Personally, just between you and me, I think Big Bird might actually be retarded.
My language preference, including alternatives, is transmitted by my browser as part of the request header, $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'], like this:
Accept-Language: en-gb
Many sites, with lesser coding skills than the mighty Google, read this header and present their content in English. Isn't that nice?
Yet not you, Google. You use the user's IP address to set the language. Which really is as dumb as rocks.
When I worked at MegaCorpUSA's European operation I was presented Google by default in Dutch, because its internet connection goes out through the Netherlands. At home, I get it in German since Google recognises Swisscom as being a Swiss internet service provider. How clever!
You do realise that Switzerland has four official languages, don't you? So delivering content in one language based on geography is particularly retarded. Your lead programmer isn't Big Bird by any chance?
Do you know how difficult it is to change Google's language settings when (a) they're not easy to find in the first place, and (b) you can't read the menus and options because they're in a language that you don't understand?
Think about that for a moment! Please do not confer with Big Bird.
Is there any chance that you could actually use the information presented to you by the user agent—or browser, if user agent
is too technical for you—to actually deliver your content in a user-friendly format?
And, while we're at it, would it be possible to have an easy option to select google.com, rather than the default google.ch that you keep foisting on me? I'm pretty sure that you used to allow it.
Yours sincerely, etc.
P.S. I created a new tag just for this note to you!