Those are the Windows colors. They predate Google.

Oh.

I wonder why Google chose those colours then? There was a rumour about their first server being made of various colours of lego bricks, but maybe someone put more thought into it...

Because it was designed by Sergey Brin[0], not a pro designer. They even had a Yahoo-esque exclamation mark in the beginning.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_logo

The full-saturation primary colors, plus green? Because they're obvious.

Aa

Lego colors:

http://media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/Sections/News_And_Analysis/__St...

As far as I know, the only query string that really matters is "q". There's also "tbm", which seems to indicate the type of search to run.

So: https://www.google.com/search?q=google+icon&tbm=isch

Um, ever seen the old Windows logo?

Right, but the old Windows logo has a distinctive shape. Even in black and white, it's distinguishable. Now you could argue that it's just squares that have been warped with a wave and I'd agree with you. However, the important part here is that they've now simplified it further in the direction of even less unique. That makes a trademark even harder to defend. That doesn't mean the shape has to be complicated: I'd argue that Nike's swoosh is extremely simple yet has just enough going on to make it instantly recognizable. The old Windows logo was another decent example.

Both MS and Google colors come from children's blocks, to convey ease of use.

I was thinking logo may be more appropriate to FourSquare as well.

Square being the operative word.