Google has been criticized as "anti-American" for using a Tetris-style logo to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the famed videogame rather than marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy.

Political leaders gathered in France this weekend to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history that set the stage for the eventual end of the Second World War. Google, however, chose to commemorate a somewhat more nerdy birthday that just happened to fall around the same date: The 25th anniversary of the creation of Tetris, one of the most popular and enduring videogames ever made.

But Google's whimsical choice has left some observers unhappy. "Here we are on June 6, 2009 and, in its inimitable way, Google has decided to memorialize the important occasion by adding an image on its homepage depicting... the computer game Tetris," conservative columnist Warner Todd Huston wrote on NewsBusters.org. "Yes, it's far more important to Google to celebrate the anniversary of the invention of the video game Tetris than to memorialize D-Day. It just warms the heart, doesn't it?"

"I have to say, though, that this is no departure for Google, a firm that finds it nearly impossible to post images celebrating any American holidays or important milestones in American history," he continued. "So, what we have here is just one more example of Google's essentially anti-American policies."

Google also took heat from WorldNetDaily writer Drew Zahn, who said that Google has "a history of ignoring major American patriotic and religious holidays." He further noted that while company representative Sunny Gettinger said in 2007 that the special logos "tend to be lighthearted and often scientific in nature," Google has in the past used poppies to mark Remembrance Day and honor the war dead of Canada, Australia, Ireland and the U.K.

via: GameCulture