Posted on 08/16/2006 3:11:01 PM PDT by holymoly
Google has said it intends to crack down on the use of its name as a generic verb, in phrases such as "to google someone."
The Internet search giant said such phrases were potentially damaging to its brand.
"We think it's important to make the distinction between using the word 'Google' to describe using Google to search the Internet and using the word 'google' to generally describe searching the Internet. It has some serious trademark issues," a representative for the search company said.
Julie Coleman, an authority on linguistics from the University of Leicester, said she could understand Google's concerns.
"The prestige associated with a trademark is lost if people use it generically, so I do see Google's point. They also do lots more than just search, so maybe they're reluctant for their brand name to be restricted in this way," Coleman said.
But Coleman added that once new words enter into common usage, it is impossible to stop their use.
"Google can't possibly stop the spread of the verb," Coleman said. "Normal people are using it in normal conversation and in writing, and they aren't likely to face legal proceedings."
What Google could do, said Coleman, is "force dictionaries to mention its origin in a trademarked brand name, which is what the Oxford English Dictionary already does."
Even if Google's attempts to stop this misuse of its trademark turn out to be in vain, many argue it shouldn't even be trying.
Members of the blogging community have suggested it is a sign that Google is losing its once-cool facade and that the search giant is taking itself too seriously.
One blogger also suggested Google has missed the obvious compliment in all this, which is that the use is evidence the company now owns the search industry.
"This should be the ultimate compliment, and I cannot believe Google sees it differently," blogger and computing graduate Frank Gruber wrote.
Steve Rubel, another blogger, branded it "one of the worst PR moves in history".
Morgan McLintic, a PR executive based in the heart of Silicon Valley, said Google should certainly learn when to love its addition to the English language.
"'Googling' is already common parlance for searching on the Internet," McLintic wrote. "And there is only one place you go to 'google,' so this is a good thing for Google with a capital 'G'. The media's use of the verb is simply a reflection of everyday use."
Google's move reflects the concerns of other businesses, such as Xerox, which has complained that its brand has become a generic term for photocopying respectively. Apple Computer is also taking action to defend "iPod."
AOL is another technology company that has fought the tendency of brands to become generic. It has contacting media outlets in the past over the use of "instant messenger" to describe any IM application, claiming that to be its brand.
That wasn't a great case, but it wasn't an awful one, either. Spike TV was aiming for a young audience, primarily urban, disproportionately black. There was a decent argument that a viewer might wrongly associate Spike TV with Spike Lee.
A big part of trademark law is the likelihood that a consumer will be confused, or led to believe that there's an association that does not exist. If my name is Bob McDonald, and I open McDonald's Garage, I'm probably fine. If I open McDonald's burger shack and put golden arches on top of it, I'm so incredibly screwed.
It's a "made-up" word in the sense that every word is -- it was used by someone for the first time once. But googol was in widespread use long before Google came into existence, so my point about being able to claim an original trademark stands.
Every soft drink in the south might as well be a "Coke". You say you want a "Coke" what you REALLY mean is you'd like something carbonated and sugary...not necessarily Coca-Cola. It's a cultural term now, they cannot stop people from using it.
Just for grins, I googled google.
2 billion seven hundred fifty million hits!
I should have most of them checked out by tomorrow morning.
Seriously though, sounds like them folks at Google are a bunch of Yahoos!!
I don't know where you got the idea that this is a Texas phenomenon. It's the norm in most of the southern US. Certainly in Atlanta, birthplace and still home of the House Wine of the South.
And the answer is, they don't do a damned thing. Common usage doesn't erode the value of a trademark, any more than it did for Xerox, Kleenex, and so on. But you can't publish it, and you can't use it in publicity or advertising. If any trademark-holder lets that kind of thing slide, they're effectively surrendering the trademarkto the public domain.
Lexicographers always walk a fine line between being descriptive and prescriptive -- that is, between documenting popular usage and defining "proper" usage. When the original OED entered print, there was a popular notion that the "King's English" could be set in stone. Didn't quite work out that way.
oh put a band-aid on it
My recollection, which is anecdotal and possibly based on flawed memory, so correct me if I'm wrong: Aspirin was a trademark of Bayer, and as part of the Great Versailles Smack-Down of 1918, the Allies decided they didn't need to enforce German trademarks any more. So Aspirin passed into the public domain as a byname for acetylsalicylic acid, but was still a trademark in Germany after it lost that status pretty much everywhere else.
a googleplex is a google raised to the 100th power, the largest number in current notation as far as I know
The representative was later seen in the bathroom regurgitating nearly a quart of Everclear...
Stop crying, and have some gin & tonic; I have a whole thermos next to the kleenex. Feel free to use both, while I googleplex.
Oh, that is when you use a google of Google searches to multiply your results to the google power of a google.
Since you're picking up Cokes, make mine root beer.
They'll subcontract it out to the RIAA, on a percentage deal.
LOL - best punchline I've read all day! :-)
All my Texan nieces and nephews talk that way, but their cousins from South Carolina don't use "Coke" as a generic term for carbonated beverages ;-).
It can also be used to indicate the number of times "Thailand?" has been written as a reply.
What amazes me about this thread is the complete ignorance of intellectual property law, and the tendency to dismiss it as silly or poorly thought out. I'm not a lawyer, but >>I've done a little reading. It doesn't take a lot to grasp the basics.
Suppose I'm the guy who wrote "Louie Louie." Every cover band in every college town in America can count on that song to bring the house down. Bar owners can clean up on the cheap beer and trendy shooters they sell to the frat boy crowd. So is it reasonable that everyone makes money off my song but me?<<
What about Linux?
Linus Torvalds made the deliberate choice to explicitly place his work in the public domain. Seems to be working pretty well for him.
A lot of people spend a lot of time creating free software. I have never fully understood that.
Charmin notion, butt it's a lost cause.
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