Prompt's TechBlog
Google bans Googling in newspapers
15 August 2006
Posted by Sean McManus
According to The Independent (among others), Google has written to media organisations warning them not to abuse its trademarked company name as a verb. Escalator and Aspirin are examples of two trademarks that fell into common usage, and Google could be worried its name might one day be used to talk about rival search engines. It's already appeared in dictionaries as a verb. Google's stance seems oddly inconsistent. In 2004, the company started allowing advertisers to use other people's trademarks to trigger their ads. Google has lost high-profile court cases in France on this issue. The company has also come under attack for caching images and scanning books without the copyright holders' permission.
# posted by Sean McManus at 3:22 PM 
Comments:
I think there's more to this than Google simply being a bit uppity - companies have to show that they are enforcing and actively using their trademarks in order to maintain their exclusive rights over them, and sending these kinds of letters out is all part of that process.
Companies like Sellotape are always sending letters out to the media to remind them that Sellotape is a brand name and not a synonim for generic sticky plastic tape. It seems stupid, but there are good legal and business reasons for them to do it, and this is just Google doing the same thing.
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