Google is currently worried that it’s trademark google is going to become the generic verb for search, and therefore lose valuable protections around it’s trademark. Well as I was reading the book The Long Tail, I came across a pretty bad example (namely because it’s in print), where Chris Anderson says “But if you Google “dell hell”…”
But was Chris saying go and do a search for dell hell, or was he saying go to google and do a search. I don’t think anyone that says go and google something ever means you should go to altavista. Surely this is different than when someone says xerox and they could give a fuck if you actually use a xerox, or if they say fed ex, they really mean overnight.
When has anyone said “go google something” and meant go search something? No, it’s short hand for go to google and do a search. I’m not a lawyer, but surely that makes a difference.
How about it Chris? Did you mean go to any old search engine or did you intend that people actually google it 
K
Karl,
That’s brilliant! Terms like “zipper” and “Kleenex” are generic because it was frequent that people would use the terms to apply to other brands (or even unbranded) products of similar function.
Google, on the other hand, I can’t recall ever meaning to “search”. The idea of “Googling” something is synonymous with using their service and theirs alone. In fact, if I ever said, “Google this for me, would ya,” and saw someone pull up Yahoo or MSN, I would VERY quickly stop them and tell them to use Google.
This is one of the reasons why I’m trying to figure out how to “TiVo” something ended up becoming more generic for DVR recording. Perhaps it was because they had celebrities and other luminaries talking about “TiVoing” things before the product hit a critical mass. Google, on the other hand, became a household word because people were already using it. Could becoming too popular too fast with the wrong people cause a trademark to fall into generic use?
OMG, Tivo is a great example of something way too good to become generisized. My comcast DVR does very little that resembles Tivo, like even work properly, or record what I want to watch. Huge pet peave with my comcast dvr is it records multiple duplicate episodes, which is hell if you’ve got a simpsons “season pass” across multiple channels.
Funnily enough David was just talking about tivo and complaining about the comcast dvr, and i also wrote a scathing article a while ago about my lame ass comcast dvr.
Anyway, thanks so much for the comment and the kind words,
karl
It’s difficult for you to imagine someone using “Google” as an engine-agnostic verb for “search,” but then again, you’re on 9Rules—you’re by no means a run-of-the-mill internet user.
It’s likely that back when Xerox dominated the photocopy market, people thought that the term “xerox” would never come to be a generic term for photocopying, but then again, it was rare for anyone to use any products but Xerox.
The generalization of brands into improper nouns is always the result of a near-total market saturation by a particular brand (xerox, q-tips, or google), but history teaches us that no brand is ever king of the hill forever.
To me, Google is similar to calling Cola “Coke”—it shows a preference for a generic product (IE, if Google is “Coke”, for some people then Yahoo! is “Pepsi”.
I dunno. Doesn’t seem like a bad thing.
Funny about the Tivo timing.
Interesting point Heliologue, more sophisticated users mean go to google and search and maybe less sophisticated users will pick up on the term and say google something meaning just go search?
It seems that generic terms should only apply to generic activities, ie. xerox is only in danger of becoming generic when another brand of copier hits the market that is “indistinguishable” in how it performs that service. Is google search indistinguishable from yahoo?
There are other engines that have words that associate a process. Have you ever “Congoo’ed” a word. That engine allows free access into premium content and so their word is catching on as a type of unique search for high end searchers.
Also, “squidoo’ing” a word means to see what other people think about a word.
Oh Seth, i’ve never heard anyone use squidoo in that way
Well, Xerox has been around a long time, and so has Fed Ex. But Google hasn’t. Today to google might mean “go to google and search” for most of us. Its just the search engine with the highest brand awareness at present.
But what if in a few years other search engines become more popular? Will we adopt a new word for “searching a phrase on the internet” just because we didn’t use google? Or haven’t we all by then become comfortable with the term “to google”? Language has a different dynamics than brands and economy and all that.
So, i think Google has a point there. Although i like the verb google and won’t stop using it.