Google adds X-Frame-Options, blocking iframe embedding of google.com AI-researched
Dependency: Iframe embedding of Google homepage
Google added X-Frame-Options headers to google.com, blocking iframe embedding of the Google homepage. Several artworks that framed Google as material — including Constant Dullaart's Revolving Internet series — disappeared overnight.
Fixes & Mitigations
- Workaround: Dullaart devised a proxy-based workaround to continue serving the framed Google homepage, but this requires active maintenance and can be blocked by Google at any time.
- No fix available: X-Frame-Options is enforced by the browser. There is no client-side bypass — the embedding site cannot override the framed site's policy.
Around 2011, Google added X-Frame-Options and frame-busting scripts to google.com, preventing any external site from embedding the Google homepage in an iframe. The change happened approximately two weeks after Google’s viral “do a barrel roll” Easter egg.
What changed
Several net artworks used the Google homepage as raw material — framing it inside iframes to rotate, distort, multiply, or otherwise transform the most-visited page on the web. When Google blocked iframe embedding, these works simply broke.
Constant Dullaart’s series was the most prominent casualty: The Revolving Internet (2010), The Disagreeing Internet (2008), The Doubting Internet (2010), and The Sleeping Internet (2011) all displayed the Google homepage in altered states. Some works were also flagged and blacklisted by Google as phishing threats.
Notes
This represents a category of extinction where the artwork depends on embedding a third-party site that later adds anti-embedding protections. The X-Frame-Options header (and its successor, Content-Security-Policy frame-ancestors) gives any site unilateral power to break any artwork that frames it. Artists working with found web content have no recourse.