A couple of minutes ago I went to Google, but instead of the usual I was presented with an overlay asking me to make selections to customize an iGoogle home page. The only way to close the overlay was to make a selection. I chose the default theme as I already have an iGoogle page and was able to get back to the search box. Is this new?
Click for larger (1566 x 1172) view (opens in a new window)
I haven’t been able to reproduce this. As you can see in the image I was not signed into iGoogle, but I had the iGoogle generic page loaded.
Has anyone else seen this? Is Google starting to aggressively push personalized search.
Subscribe to 
TheVanBlog | 
Email This Post
Can’t say that I have seen that. Everyone here has G accounts and a home page set up already (for Personalized search research).. so it may only come up for folks that haven’t used it yet.
I assume it was legitimate and not some type of intrusion? ie; legitimate G service offering.
I am interested to see what others find.
Dave
interesting…I haven’t seen that either but will definitely keep looking out for it. You make some interesting points about personalized search, though…I’d like to see what comes out of that as well.
I have not seen this, either at work or at home. I use Google extensively in both places, and I have multiple Google accounts at work.
I will definitely be on the look out for it though.
Dave I assume you’d only see the overlay if you aren’t signed in. It was definitely trying to get you to sign up for an account. I log in and out all day and was logged out when I saw the overlay. I have no question it was legit. What I found interesting was that you had no way to close the overlay without making a selection. It also seemed like a new way for Google to get attention since I’d never seen something like this before.
Ayat and Kristine this was the first time I’d ever encountered the overlay and I tried to reproduce it without luck. I assume you have to be logged out of iGoogle to see it. I did have the generic iGoogle on without being logged in, which may or may not have had something to do with triggering the ad.
It struck me as a very aggressive way to get me to sign up for an account.
I got that same page a few days ago. It make me angry. It is very, very pushy to do something like that.
I didn’t care for it either Christina. It was too pushy for me too. Have you seen it more than once or just the one time?