Do Not Verbalize Google
August 15, 2006
I realize that Daw web hosting blog has paid too much attention on Google affairs and someone may blame me for playing against the Search Engine. My answer is very clear. I like Google, I use their toolbar and language tools, and I use to search the web with this search engine. But I don’t like what does Google do.
It pretends to be not just a Search engine but all-embracing center of any online activities. The company already is acting as a payment processor and does many things that might be considered as unnatural for a search engine. Google however went too far with its recent move! The company has sent letters to media organizations, warning them against using its name as a verb.
Google took a place in the Oxford English Dictionary this June. “To google” means “to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, America’s leading reference book.
The leading position that Google won on the web made their name a part of the street slang. When it comes to “searching the web” more and more people say “googling”. I truly believe that the Search Engine experience phenomenal success in its business. It changed the language!
I remember I’ve seen the trademark name “Starbucks” used as a synonym of “coffee” in a movie but I don’t remember anyone to complain about it. Google however didn’t like the idea their name to be used as a verb.
“We think it’s important to make the distinction between using the word Google to describe using Google to search the Internet, and using the word Google to describe searching the Internet. It has some serious trademark issues.”, says company’s official.
The UK’s newspaper Independent writes that Google’s letters have “raised snickers after they were leaked on to the web”. Many bloggers made fun on Google and its lawyers. Jokes like those above have been placed around the web.
Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party.
Inappropriate: I googled that hottie.”
Google obviously works under different standards. It is concerned about its trademark but at the same time it plans to put on to the web every book ever published. It claims it does not tolerate censorship and it supports free flow of information, but at the same time it worked out and agreement with the Chinese communist government to censor web sites under search terms such as “tiananmen” only to guarantee its commercial interest in China.
