A New Brand of Da Vinci Code Justice

Would it be too farfetched to suggest Google had something to do with “The Da Vinci Code”-like game embedded in a recent British judge’s ruling?

To catch up some people, a seemingly random series of italic letters in a ruling by British Justice Peter Smith was actually the justice’s homage to the best-selling book.

The movie version of the book opens soon, so whether Smith meant to or not, he’s helped stir the publicity cauldron.

Is this guerilla marketing meets the judiciary? What a devilish idea. And that’s where Google, known for its out-of-the-box notions sometimes, comes in.

Perhaps some 20 percent-timer (Google lets employees devote 20 percent of their work to pet projects) has come up with an AdSense ad placement feature for judicial rulings?

Or maybe brand-planting in judicial paperwork has been going on for quite a while, and nobody’s caught on yet. It’s true, after all, that technology-related court orders are usually sprinkled with well-known brand names, usually there in order to explain a technology’s nuances.

What evidence is there to back all this up? Granted, it’s really nothing. Google’s already got some hook-up with “The Da Vinci Code,” the movie: It’s been running a puzzle contest leading up to the movie’s opening day.