Do you really expect a service as integral to the Internet as Google to shutdown entirely? Would they want to give people an excuse to try Bing or another search engine? What about their shareholders?
This is about as far as they can go, and tellingly this is the first time that I can remember them using their homepage for such a call to action.
Expecting them to go dark for 24 hours is just naïve.
Do you really expect a service as integral to the Internet as Google to shutdown entirely? Would they want to give people an excuse to try Bing or another search engine? What about their shareholders?
Their shareholders will have much more to worry about if SOPA passes. Plus, Google being completely down in protest for a day would be a huge PR win; it would make those that stayed up and running look ridiculous. Wikipedia's approach is the strongest and most likely to actually sway people into action while Google's will be largely ignored by the public.
This is about as far as they can go, and tellingly this is the first time that I can remember them using their homepage for such a call to action.
Expecting them to go dark for 24 hours is just naïve.