Groups begin to Boycott Google

Google is facing significant backlash after quietly removing heritage events like Black History Month, Pride Month, Indigenous Peoples’ Month, and Holocaust Remembrance Day from its Calendar’s default settings. Many users, outraged by what they see as a rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments, are pledging to switch search engines in protest.

Google’s Justification: ‘Not Scalable or Sustainable’

In response to the uproar, Google defended its decision by stating that manually maintaining a broad set of cultural moments worldwide was no longer feasible.

“For over a decade, we’ve worked with timeanddate.com to show public holidays and national observances in Google Calendar,” spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld told The Verge. “Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world. We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing—and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable. So in mid-2024, we returned to showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally, while allowing users to manually add other important moments.”

User Outrage and the Search Engine Exodus

Despite Google’s explanation, many users view the move as part of a broader retreat from DEI initiatives. Social media platforms have exploded with criticism, with many pledging to abandon Google entirely.

“BOYCOTT GOOGLE,” wrote one outraged X user.
“Time to find a new search engine,” another declared.
“And this is why I f*** with @bing,” one person tweeted.

Yahoo and Bing appear to be among the top alternatives users are considering. Whether this sentiment translates into a measurable shift in market share remains to be seen.

Context: A Larger Rollback of DEI Initiatives

Google’s decision to remove heritage events aligns with a broader trend of rolling back DEI commitments, especially in light of recent political changes. The company has already removed DEI hiring goals and scrubbed related mentions from its annual report. This comes amid a nationwide crackdown on DEI programs, fueled by executive orders from the Trump administration that have targeted DEI roles in both the public and private sectors.

In his first week back in office, President Trump signed executive orders placing DEI employees on leave, eliminating related programs across federal agencies, and directing the Justice Department to investigate corporate DEI policies for potential “illegal discrimination and preferences.”

What’s Next for Google – and Search Engine Market Share?

While Google maintains that its decision was purely logistical, the optics of this move have ignited a firestorm. Whether this backlash leads to a meaningful shift in search engine preferences remains to be seen, but it highlights growing consumer dissatisfaction with tech giants’ changing policies on DEI.

For search marketers, this controversy is worth watching. If a critical mass of users does shift to Bing or Yahoo, advertisers may need to rethink their search strategy, redistributing budgets accordingly. While Google’s dominance is unlikely to crumble overnight, user sentiment suggests that its stranglehold on search isn’t as unshakable as it once seemed.