Sweden axes new word after Google intervenes | Hacker News Reader

Sweden axes new word after Google intervenes

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Trademark protection.

They do not want "google" to follow "kleenex" into general usage otherwise bad things happen for Google.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

This is the reason that Google objects to "to google" being used as a verb to mean "to search"

I think "googla" is already in the list. It means "to google something" more or less.

Edit: yes, "googla" is in it, it means "to search the net using the search engine Google"

While I applaud Google for trying to protect their brand, if the general population wants to use it, there is nothing in the world that Google can do about it. Eg, "Hoovering the carpet" etc.

Take it the other way, the term google has entered popular culture and it means (for me anyway) to search for it on the internet. Eg "I was googling for that cat video the other day..."

Could it be that Google has objections because it is being used in a negative manner. I mean, Google has always wants to be a search engine that can locate anything on the internet. Eg "The cat video was ungooglable..."

No one is preventing the "general public" from using it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5442131

Brand protection actually.

They didn't object to inclusion of "to google" into Merriam-Webster a couple of years ago. But it was an all-encompassing neologism with a positive bias. The ogooglebar on the other hand carries a negative bias, it describes something that you can't do and it's linked to Google. That's what they don't like.

Silly if you ask me.

Nope, it's definitely trademark law. Here's Merriam-Webster's definition:

  to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person)
  on the World Wide Web

The reason Google is alright with this is because it specifies that "to Google" is to use Google. That prevents the trademark from being diluted.

Similarly, Google wanted the council to declare ogooglebar as being unable to be found on Google, rather than just being unable to be found using any generic search engine.

This is a very important distinction. I imagine that if Merriam-Webster tried to define "to Google" as to use any generic search engine, Google would have lodged a similar complaint.

Yep, it looks like you are right. They appear to have C&D'd the broader definition of "to google" on a couple of occasions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_%28verb%29

Looks like most other dictionaries don't care:

  to search the Internet for information about (a person, topic, etc.): 
  *We googled the new applicant to check her background.*

  to search for (something on the internet) using a search engine

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t

What's bad about that? Are people not more inclined to buy Kleenex because of this?

People (in the UK at least) regularly say “I’m hoovering” or “I’m going to buy a hoover” without thinking about the brand of Hoover. I gather the same happened in the US for Xerox and photocopying (a trend that never really made it over here). Once a word becomes common place then your branding ceases to be branding.

Actually, it's worse than that: once a word becomes generic, you _lose trademark protection_.

Once a trademark is genericized, the original owner loses trademark protection for the brand, and anyone can use it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

Things that were once trademarks: Aspirin, Adrenalin, Escalator, Heroin, Kerosene, Laundromat, Linoleum, Mimeograph, Thermos, Touch-tone, Videotape, Zipper.

The "bad" about that is that if "to google" became generic for "doing a websearch" is to stop other search enginge to start saying "Google it with Bing!".

I would have thought that would be "good" for brands to be so firmly entrenched into society that the brandname becomes a verb. "Google it with Bing!" would lead to the thought: "No, I'll use the real thing." Imagine the benefits to Bing if Google were to use "Bing it with Google."

Just in case anyone isn't aware of the video to which you're referring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYVCk10AzS0

Read the "Trademark erosion" part of the link. I posted for more info.

Take Aspirin, which was a registered trademark of Bayer for the longest time until it became a generic name. Now anyone in the US (and eleven other countries) can label their brand of acetylsalicylic acid tablets aspirin. If people are more inclined to buy aspirin, it's less likely to be Bayer brand Aspirin.

The article is based on a radio interview, found at (https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=406&...).

The reason behind withdrawing the word, and the tone in which it was said was quite illuminating. Basically, Language Council had grown tired and very annoyed by the discussion with the google lawyers and thus opted to skip the whole mess.

But what was the risk? Surely all Google could do was moan loudly thousands of miles away and there's nothing they could do about it?

Or is there something Google could actually have done, like sue this "Language Council" in Sweden itself?

The end of the article is important: "Language Council could have ignored Google's requests, but decided to remove the word in order to spark a debate."

Sounds like the Language Council is doing a kind of tactical overreaction to keep Google and other companies from bothering them in the future. They also want people to think more about power over language.

This seems to be another case where an American company doesn't understand that American law does not apply in other countries.

It also seems that the lawyers where harassing the staff so much that they didn't want to continue their work.

I can't be bothered to look it up, but no doubt Google has a registered trademark for their name in Sweden. Swedish trademark law applies in Sweden, so I'm not sure what role Google being an American company plays in any of this. MySQL AB likely would have raised a similar objection if some American institution were considering using a variant of MySQL to describe a generic database. That wouldn't have made MySQL AB a Swedish company that doesn't understand that Swedish law doesn't apply in other countries; it would have been a multinational company protecting its international trademark.

It might be that the American trademark law covers what goes in a dictionary but Swedish trademark law does not. So no matter what Googles' lawyers think they can not legally influence the decision. But they can obviously be annoying enough to create influnce.

I don't know about Swedish law, but out of principle, even stupied IP laws should protect the things they are set to protect, or the laws should be overturned. Given that the Language Council (Språkrådet, right?) is trying to _regulate_ language, I think that trademark protection should be _considered_ in this case. This wouldn't be the case if this was a purely descriptive dictionary.

OTOH, looking at the Council's new entries from earlier years http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spr%C3%A5kr%C3%A5dets_nyordslis... which have for example "facebooka" and "twittra", so I find Google's objection quite weird.

Språkrådet doesn't regulate the language. The dictionary that they publish is purely describing the general usage. That is, if it is a word that is in common use it should be in the dictionary with the common definition.

> It might be that the American trademark law covers what goes in a dictionary but Swedish trademark law does not

[citation needed]

17 § The publication of dictionaries, handbooks or other similar printed publications is scripture writers, editors or publishers, at the request of the holder of a registered trademark, required to ensure that the brand is not reflected in the document without showing that the mark is protected by registration. The same applies if such publication is made available electronically by the person referred to in Chapter 1. 9 § Freedom of Expression.

Anyone who does not comply with a request under the first paragraph is required to contribute to a correction published in the manner and to the extent that is reasonable and to fund this.

-- (in swedish) http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Lagar/Svenskforfat...

The way I read it, you are allowed to put a trademarked entry/word in a dictionary, but you need to say that a term is trademarked (basically put a ™ after it) if the owner requests it. It doesn't say anything about forcing it to be defined by the text of the trademark definition, or the trademark owner being able to pull it out of the dictionary.

Seems like fairly straightforward trademark protection. If they allow a definition where Google = Generic Search Engine then it's a slippery slope to being the next biro.

Is there a Swedish word for storm in a tea cup?

Curiously, in Sweden storms never brew in tea cups, only in glasses of water.

"Storm i ett vattenglas".

It's all those glaciers, the water's clearer...

The Swedish glaciers are all tiny and not major contributors to our water supply.

I believe the real reasons are:

1) West winds causing it to rain in the mountains of Norway and western Sweden.

2) The over 100k lakes created by the ice age.

3) Generally good bedrock and soil for ground water quality. Only common problem is radon in some parts of Sweden.

I wasn't being serious, but thanks for the insight!

How do trademarks apply to dictionaries? I don't think they do.

This almost seems like a parody of Google's behavior at times the last few years.

When you become your own parody, that's ... success?

Did Google fire their PR dept or did they just become another company that we love to hate? The past two weeks has been a huge PR disaster for Google.

As for the issue in the article, I have mixed reactions. They din't have a problem when Oxford dictionary made "google" a verb[1]. However, letting your trademark slip is also not the best idea either - Spam [2].

[1] http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2058373/Google-Now-A-Ve...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)#Trademark_iss...

Forget about trademark violations. Sweden is a sovereign state. I think something's very weird when a company can dictate which words people are allowed to use.

Of course, at least in Norway this word is in active use already. It's just not in the dictionary yet (and it's rarely used). But as someone else said, now people will use it just out of spite.

It's not about what you can say - you can say whatever you like - but Sweden or whomever can't officially bestow a new meaning on a trademarked name. It's like enshrining in the dictionary that Coca-Cola means "sugary water".

No one has bestowed a new meaning to anything. "Ogoogelbar" means "ungooglable", translating directly (something which cannot be searched using Google). Besides, language is organic. You can't exclude a commonly used word from the dictionary just because it violates someone's opinion on how you're allowed to express yourself in writing.

Regardless, which supernational authority is going to enforce a claim like this? I think it is you who need to cite which part of international law regulates the organic development and official acceptance of new words.

If the people use a word that happens to be trademarked in a way unrelated or semi related to the trademark then yes, they can and will do that.

[citation needed]

This article should provide an overview.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

The difference is that the Oxford definition specifically refers to Google's search engine, not a generic "web search", while the definition in TA was generic.

Frankly, considering trademark law, I don't think Google's to blame. And it's not like people can't use the word anyway, there's just less official evidence of erosion.

They just got big enough to stop caring about what geeks think.

How do you know that Google didn't have a problem when Oxford dictionary made Google a verb?

Also, Oxford tends to capitalise and / or mark as trademarks words such as this.

I just heard this on Swedish national radio news. People will now use this out of spite.

I don't speak Swedish and I'm considering using it out of spite.

"The Tallahassee 5 day weather prognosis made on Jan. 12, 1980 is ogooglebar, even with Bing."

This reminds me of when McDonald's openly objected to Webster's (accurate) definition of "McJob" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McJob#History

What sort of person get's up in a morning, faces a day of chasing this sort of stuff, and doesn't blow their own brains out at the sheer inanity of it all?

They're called 'conservatives'.

lawyers

Is this simply unbelievable or just unbelievable? Man, these guys are really getting weirder and weirder.

The deep irony is that the reason is that Google doesn't want themselves to become ungoogleable. Which is the word they pressured the Swedish language council to remove from the standard dictionary. But in Swedish ofc.

Google has been taking action against this genericization since 2003.[1] They also got the German dictionary Duden to change their "to google" Definition to refer to Google only.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_%28verb%29 [2] http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/newzzEQXM1K6L-12-1.5328... (German language)

This is almost certainly due to trademark protection. I'm surprised this isn't mentioned in the original article.

If "Google" as a verb becomes a genericized trademark[1] then they lose a lot of their trademark protection.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark

> I'm surprised this isn't mentioned in the original article.

Don't be, there's a witch-hunt on Google right now. Nothing but the most negative-spin on them will be reported for the next few months until everyone calms down about reader.

Apart from being ridiculous, dictionaries just indicate the common use of terms, that is what they are. They are not a list of 'official' words (unless insanity rules) in any language (even in Spanish, where there is the Academia).

They think language has to be reduced to their rules.

Buy new glasses, google.

I think they should have spun it as something positive. As in, if you can't find it on google you can't find it anywhere. Therefore something that is ungoogleable, can't be found with any search engine. Anyways, I did submit it mainly for its novelty value.

This is almost certainly to protect their trademark. Google is very concerned about going the way of butterscotch, trampoline, escalator, zipper, etc. and having its name become a generic term for web searches.

The problem is, they already became that. A while ago.

This, from the article, is a good summary:

> "It's the users of the language who decide if it will remain," she said.

> "So if the word exists, use it if you want. That's something Google can't decide."

Yeah, but being in an official word list is probably much more detrimental in an hypothetical trademark lawsuit.

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