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Comment by rurounijones | Hacker News Reader

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rurounijones

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"

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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_.

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 "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!".

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

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."

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.

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