I saw this amusing tidbit on News.com.com... If you visit Google, you will notice a copyright notice at the bottom of the page. Upon reflection, one might consider this odd, since there's really no significant content on the page worth copyrighting. In fact, Google's own laywers say there's no need for it. So, why is it there?

In the early days of usability testing for Google, test subjects would load the site, and stare blankly at the screen for one or two minutes before doing anything. Baffled by this behavior, the usability folks asked what the heck was going on. The test subjects responded: "I'm waiting for the page to finish loading". Copyright notices having become the de facto end-of-page markers on web sites, Google slapped one on there, and the rest is history.

Interestingly, even though I designed this the Ridiculent layout, I sometimes have the same reaction on this very site, since there's no footer of any sort at the end of the weblog content. Perhaps a minor layout tweak is in order...