CATFIGHT!! IE7 for Yahoo versus IE7 for Google - did Google steal the design of Yahoo's IE7 promo page?
Ok, so its not a full blown catfight, but you have to admit, the by-line got your attention.
Not only have Google gone to the dark side, offering an "Optimised for Google" build of IE7, but there are allegations circulating that Google copied Yahoo's IE7 promo page for its own use - this blog entry has screenshots of the two pages in question:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/12/race-for-optimizing-ie7.html
Yahoo's page has been live for a long time - my regular readers will remember how Yahoo jumped the gun back when IE7 first went gold, sending the page that was apparently copied by Google live many hours before Microsoft officially released IE7 gold - I still suspect that Yahoo did that deliberately:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2006/10/19/185890.aspx
Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo claims that his PR Department advised him that there is no MS supplied template:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008122.html
Matt Cutts doesn't deny the claims - he probably isn't in a position to be able to do so - although he does have a dig at Yahoo about alleged copying of advertisement appearances:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ie7-promo-page/
Was Google so silly as to copy Yahoo's page? Even worse, did Google steal Yahoo's graphic and edit it to remove the Yahoo branding? Now that Google have changed their page, its impossible to say. I would have loved to have a very close look at the graphic on the Google version of the page to see if we could spot any evidence that the graphic was Yahoo's, but edited to remove the Yahoo branding - the screenshots on the blog entries simply aren't clear enough.
Of course, it may be that MS *did* provide a template, but why would Yahoo PR apparently deny it, and why would Google change the page, if it were a MS provided template that they were entitled to use? Google are not known for backing down quietly, preferring to take the stand of "We're Google, so sue us".
Another thing to consider, is what if *somebody else* created the template - that is, not Microsoft.
The source of the Yahoo page certainly looks and reads like a template, with stuff like this in the code:
<!-- start: your content here -->
<!-- end: your content here -->
I suppose we will never know the truth, unless and until MS, Google or Yahoo issue a formal statement about this little brewing scandal.
Boy, the Firefox fans must be grumpy - the Firefox loving Google are touting IE7 - I wonder if they feel like Google has betrayed them - I suppose Google decided that they'd make sure they would hedge their bets and get as many users as possible from both sides of the Web browser fence 
This blog entry is interesting, complete with animated graphic comparison of the two IE7 windows featured - yes, it sure does look like the Google Ad was simply a doctored copy of the Yahoo original. So.. who did the doctoring, and who created the original graphic?
Remind me again, why is it that so many see Google as the good guys? I predict that one day Google will be seen to be the "evil empire" just like MS has been.