Stop ‘googling’ says Google

I don’t get it. The day my company name evolves into a verb is the day I dance naked on the N3 with a bottle of champagne tucked under my left arm.

Can there be a more significant hat tip to a product? I PODcasted today. I GOOGLEd “narrow minded bureaucracy” this afternoon. Can I SKYPE you? Did you DIGG that link?

Just this week I heard that both Google and Apple are asking people not to use their brandnames in exactly the way I’ve described above. Google is asking journalists not to say ‘googling’ or ‘googled’ in articles, while Apple is threatening legal action against anyone using the word Pod in their trademark.

Oh for crying out loud. Let the lawyers do what lawyers do. Let the marketers engage the customers. Please. This is nauseating.

  • http://www.gottaquirk.com Rob

    Hey Mike. I agree that this is crazy, but I think you have to look at the flaws in trademark law as a partial defense of these actions. As far as I understand it, if the company is not considered to be protecting their trademark then they risk it completely entering the public domain. However what Google and Apple are doing is quite different. Google is merely following trademark process and protecting its interests. They are not actually saying cease and desist, merely informing of the trademark and offering suggestions for alternatives instead of the verb “googling”. Apple on the other hand actually want people to stop and hence the threats of legal action.

    I’m not a lawyer… I just listen to the Daily SearchCast.

  • http://www.mikestopforth.com Mike

    I’m still not sure I agree Rob. You said, “Google is merely following trademark process and protecting its interests.” – what are those interests? In my small, consumer-oriented mind, those interests revolve around building the Google brand to such a degree that ‘information’ and Google become synonymous.

    Warranted, I’m not a lawyers left toenail, but it makes absolutely no sense to me. Like you said, trademark laws :)

  • http://www.gottaquirk.com rob

    It doesn’t make any sense but as i said, if they don’t do it, they risk losing their brand altogether. I may be wrong, but the way i see it is that one of the consequences of this would be that competitors could use it… I guess its a fine line between being a household name and losing control.

    I’m going to get Steve Ferguson to give us his 2c.

  • Steve Ferguson

    Rob, you have got the right idea although the rights would not fall into the public domain. It is rather seen as a waiver of rights by conduct if they are not seen to be asserting them. When a “real” infringement situation comes up where Google really have to protect themselves their TM claims could be met with the defence that they have allowed a dilution of their rights in the past. As you said, they are not enforcing their rights, simply asserting them.