Show HN: Google Blade – discover, create, and share custom search engines | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Google Blade – discover, create, and share custom search engines

googleblade.com

88 pointshornbaker60 comments

The domain made me think that this is an official project by Google. And you're using Google's logo. This could be a trademark infringement.

If this site gets attention of a Googler who cares, it will almost certainly be sent a C&D. I'd recommend the author rename/rebrand. Generally names "Google ____" or "Android ____" are forbidden, but "____ for Google" or "____ for Android" are generally okay with Google's trademark policies.

EDIT: I hit my HN rate limit for the morning, so my response to your comment below follows:

AppleInsider is extremely unlikely to be confused with an Apple website, however. Particularly since it's style is very different, and a "news and rumors" site about Apple isn't likely to be confused for an Apple site. (And as a sidebar, even if Apple did want to C&D them, they'd have a much harder time C&Ding a journalistic presence.)

In the case of yours, I had to check the copyright fine print to determine it was not a Google website.

Even changing the logo and site design from the standard Google corporate style would help.

I understand that risk, and will comply with Google's wishes. As the project is completely focused on Google's CSE, and serves only to draw attention to them, I do hope they give me a pass. Technically, it's not unheard of... for example, AppleInsider.com is not an Apple property.

Trademarks, if not enforced, can be struck down, so it is unlikely that a company will simply ignore a case of trademark infringement when it is so easily confused with the trademarked products, including logos, colors, fonts, and overall functionality.

I think trademarks are applicable for specific verticals, it is Ok for two separate companies to have Apple as trademark for consumer electronics and say travel agency (http://www.applevacations.com/).

While this may be true, I think associating "Google" with "search engine" doesn't exactly imply separate business domains.

Yeah, I commented mostly about AppleInsider case, which is in more grey zone.

It's not about whether they like the trademark infringer or not, it's about the substantive infringement of their trademark and the fact that defense of the trademark is necessary for it to be legally viable.

What you've done is the equivalent of saying "DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THIS VIDEO" on a youtube video of a tv show. Just because you're saying you don't own it and your intentions (may be/are) good does not mean the holder of the trademark or copyright will just say 'oh he seems nice, let him keep it up'.

Relevant: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/24/11111000/google-says-9to5g...

(note the update)

That is not a particularly relevant story. The use of a trademark can be justified under fair use in the context of news reporting and commentary, e.g. "macrumors.com" or "applesucks.com", but even that is not cut-and-dry: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/using-trademarks-others

You have a much more difficult defense in that you've produced something that does what the layperson associates Google with: search. Even worse, you are using Google's name and logo. It's been awhile since I've read through Google's TOS, but generally, TOS are very explicit about not using their trademark name or logo in such a way that implies endorsement.

You make good points, and I appreciate your point of view.

Just wanted to update you guys that I took everyone's good advice, and changed the name of this project to https://bladesearch.com.

I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused in making you think it was a service of Google's. I viewed it as a tribute to one of my favorite services of theirs (custom search engines) and let that cloud my legal perspective.

Anyway, I didn't hear from Google, but also didn't want them to have to engage their legal team, so I went ahead and rebranded today.

Lesson learned, and thanks again everyone for the great feedback yesterday.

This is definitely a trademark infringement. Don't wait for the C&D, just change it so your name is not publicly (and forever) attached to a legal dispute.

It's a cool project, but using Google's name to add prestige and an implicit endorsement is not something that Google can easily abide.

I actually initially thought this was a Google projects, but only realized it wasn't when I actually scrolled down to the footer (and also checked the SSL certificate, which is issued by Amazon).

I'll happily change the name if Google asks me to, no C&D necessary.

But I don't think the law (or large company reaction) is cut and dried in cases like this. See 9to5Google, AppleInsider, etc.

GoogleBlade.com is a tribute site, featuring only an existing product of Google (CSEs), and trying to make them better and more discoverable.

Here is the default url of a Google CSE:

https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl?cx=01056188319074391687...

and here is a Google Blade:

https://linkedin.googleblade.com

Google has paid so little love to this product that CSEs are still displaying their old logo in the search box, and there is no central hub where you can discover great CSEs.

I was thrilled when Google released CSEs back in 2006, and I've used them ever since. I hate to see them neglected and hard to discover, though, and most people I talk to have never heard about them.

Google Blade is my attempt to shine some light, and love, on them. If Google wants any changes made, I'll comply asap.

You're using a logo and design that mimics Google's actual design aesthetic, I honestly thought this was a Google project before I read the top comment. My money is on you definitely getting a C&D dude, like they'd be crazy not to.

AppleInsider and 9to4Google are publications that are clearly not owned by the companies they are referencing. This literally looks like a page from Google's developer lab sites.

9to5google and AppleInsider are news sites that do not carry Google or Apple branding. If AppleInsider were to produce phones, or even phone cases, the law would take a much different stance on things.

The disregard of Google's legal rights is bad enough. What's worse is that this blatant-coattail-riding is completely unnecessary for making an impact. Plenty of companies have used bigger companies' APIS to create amazing (or at least successful) services. We wouldn't have Airbnb or Tinder if they had branded themselves as Facebookings.com or FACEFUCK.com, even though FB's APIs were essential to their MVP.

Trademark infringement goes like this: "Would a reasonable person believe GoogleBlade.com was an official Google property or service?"

If the answer is yes, you're infringing. It doesn't matter how great your service is, where your heart is, or whether other businesses use the name as well. What matters is that you're 1) using the Google name, 2) the Google logo, and 3) a Google inspired aesthetic which combine to create an ambiguous and potentially confusing customer experience.

No one visiting 9to5Google is going to confuse it for a Google property, same for AppleInsider. They are distinctly NOT official properties, and no reasonable person would thus be confused.

The primary concern is that a random visitor might have a horrible experience on your site, and confuse that experience for something provided by Google.

Just in case this becomes popular, I've created https://googleblade.googleblade.com to search for Google Blades. :p

I saw that, lol. You went all Inception on it.

Although this works, too: https://googleblade.com/blades/search/ruby

looks like you need to make your engines discoverable/sitemapped though, it doesn't seem they are indexed in google

Might be smart to remove their logo from your site. I would expect a cease and desist if this gets popular.

Rightly said

They'll probably also be getting a C&D for the domain itself.

I thought this was a google product...

It pretty much is - it's built on Google Custom Search Engines (https://cse.google.com), which have been around since 2006 but never seen a lot of promotion from Google.

I'm trying to bring attention to them, and make them more discoverable. If Google wants me to change the name, I will - but it's a tribute project.

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I speak for my employer, but yeah: you should strongly consider changing the name and branding. I like the idea and the sentiment behind it, but I think it could be done just as easily without using Google's IP.

"It pretty much is" no it is not.

Just a little side project here, something I always wanted to build because I get tired of typing stuff like site:whatever.com and intitle:something when doing power searches on Google. Happy to answer questions.

Do you know how the filtering works with https in the URLs? I tried this against my own site (https://findlectures.com/), but I don't get results unless I take the "s" out, despite Google displaying it that way.

I took a look at your Blade config... you shouldn't need the http or https in there at all. Test on google first, like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afindlectures.com%2F*

You've got 70 pages indexed there, so you should see some results once you make a search.

Update: 39 results now for searching "a" at https://lectures.googleblade.com/

Ah ok, thanks!

I've spent most of the last 10 years doing some variation of SEO or Affiliate marketing, always happy to try new methods regardless of how white hat they may be. Just fun to try and see various methods for the most part. For what it's worth, Google has always been surprisingly terrible at reacting to spoof sites and use of their trademark in domains. I am big fan of CSE, I use it as the primary engine in over 400 sites ( paid version) and enjoy the analytics integrations, exclusion options and often try to use it for many out of the box filtering techniques in sites ( how about an agent locator search by zip code using only CSE and schema)

Anyways, my first application of it was for toolbars downloads for webmasters with CSE for custom searches just like your blades. Profit from each download and the Adsense. It brought about 22k in a year between CPI, Adsense earnings and some built in afflinks for hosting and domain tools plus Amazon cookies for about 6 hours of work and marketing.

The point. The joy of CSE is that you can brand as you please, what you are making and the exposure you just got for this concept could be a decent passive income so there is no good reason to risk infringement and repercussions on the Adsense side when your project could easily give you some cash, if you don't need it, then donate it but why risk that aspect, Google doesn't need the help for promoting the product, it powers many an internal website's search for the paid product. Buy an alternate "bladesearch" domain and redirect it and see if it gets any love on the merit of the search concepts you devise.

Done, and thank you for sharing your experiences and insights! https://bladesearch.com

ps. If you could share how you did your agent locator by zipcode, I'd be really interested to hear about it. hello at above domain.

Is this doing a `site:` search on Google? If it's doing something more, what is it?

Also, FWIW, the HackerNews blade doesn't return anything (I tried some pretty basic searches on it.)

Tons of results for me: https://hn.googleblade.com/hn/ai

It can do something as simple as a site: search on Google, but you can string configs together to join up 20-30 sites together, create tabs to split out by sentiment, split out by number or dollar ranges, etc. etc. I have barely scratched the surface with the Blades there now, hoping to see some creative ones surface.

The point is that yes, all of this can be done with Google operators.

These are just links to those operators.

Well, yes, if you don't mind typing or pasting the same combo of 20-30 different search operators in Google.com, it can be done there.

But there are some other subtle differences: you get thumbnail images with search results (if available) with Blades, and you don't get a captcha to prove you're human if your search volume or rate is out of bounds on a Blade. (These are features of CSEs, not something I've hacked.)

If you're wondering what kind of traffic #25 on the front page brings in:

https://twitter.com/GoogleBlade/status/811681152046141441

About 1,000 uniques so far, 20 signups.

I wonder if you would see a comparable result if people didn't think this was a new product from Google.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even make it to the frontpage without using Google as a prop.

hence why he's doing it

Just wanted to update you guys that I took everyone's good advice, and changed the name of this project to https://bladesearch.com.

Anyway, I didn't hear from Google, but also didn't want them to have to engage their legal team, so I went ahead and rebranded today.

Lesson learned, and thanks again everyone for the great feedback yesterday.

I also managed to execute JavaScript by adding <img src=x onerror=alert(1337)> to my blade description, it seems to run on the home-page or here: https://ftp.googleblade.com/jenoer

Edit: Unfortunately I have to go to bed, if I find anything else tomorrow I'll drop you an e-mail.

Thanks! Just pushed a fix for that.

You're not validating the provided email address when someone signs up. And note, there's only one 100% correct way to validate an email address: https://hackernoon.com/the-100-correct-way-to-validate-email...

Contrary to popular belief, not even activation messages are a 100% correct way to validate an email address. Due to the many hilarities involved in delivering an email, they can result in both false positives and false negatives.

Sadly there is no perfect way to validate an email address. You can either optimise for false positives or false negatives, but perfect precision is beyond hope.

Also note, the more validation you require, the more users you deter.

Looks cool but you need to remove all the Google branding. It's misleading and trademark infringement.

Wonderful site, I discover the telegra.ph on it, it's interesting.

I like this one by PeteD - it searches 12 different bike part websites at once:

https://bikeparts.googleblade.com/bikeparts/brooks%20saddle

searchblades.io domain is not occupied ;-)

Thanks, might need it. :) I've got a couple others on standby, but I really hope the big G is cool about this.

I highly doubt they will be - just saying.

Not to mention all of the modified shadow logos for all the different individual search engines. May be considered fair use, but I would expect some individual cease and desists too.

That said, I hope everyone involved just relaxes and lets it grow! Good luck!

Thanks daveguy. I miss the good ol' days of the internet when stuff like this wasn't even a concern. :/

I'm sorry, but it bothers me that you think this is a matter of them being "cool", as if it were "uncool" to be protective of one's brand. Why should Google be OK with your appropriation of their trademark, but not someone else's googleporn.com product, even if it uses Google search (among other Google APIs)?

Isn't it cool enough that they make it reasonably easy for you to build an interesting service off of their technology? Why are they obligated to also lend you their reputation just because you believe you have their best interests at heart? What if there's a security hole in your service that causes a PR disaster for them?

Google gets plenty of positive attention when you follow their rules about crediting their API and data. It is not necessary to use their name in order to pay tribute.

I suggest you blacklist a few more subdomain requests, for example, I took ftp.googleblade.com, api., smtp. and could take a few others which could disrupt future expansions on this project.

Thanks for the headsup, and I'm glad a friendly person took them. :)

Bro, you are going to get sued and you will be flattened. Change the name.

It looks like your edit profile page[1] allows password changes without specifying the current password.

1 - https://googleblade.com/edit

Reply on news.ycombinator.com