This morning the blogosphere is alight with Google's latest alleged evil: the search giant's ongoing attempt to prevent the verb "to google" becoming sufficiently widespread to genericise and dilute what is currently a trademarked brand. Such was the fate of Xerox and Hoover, for example, both of which words have passed into common usage as verbs, which development led Xerox to take out a series of ads to reinforce its trademark, a course which Google has apparently considered itself (ManagingIP). This debate about Google's sudden recourse to legal action appears to have been kicked off by an Independent article stating that "the California-based company is becoming concerned about trademark violation".
But this simply isn't news: an extremely cursory web search turns up mention of Google's fighting the erosion of its brand by genericisation with lawyer's letters as early as February 2003, with a lawyer's letter to WordSpy. Indeed, the event is noted at both Wikipedia and the BBC website. So why the furore today? Perhaps because in February 2003 Google was still the beloved technology underdog and the "don't be evil" mantra still believed by the wider world. There's no real sport in knocking Google for its shift from garage skunkworks to corporate behemoth, and it's debatable that a policy ongoing since February 2003 is suddenly more remarkable today than on any other day in the intervening three and a half years.
Update: Danny Sullivan at SEW confirms with a plethora of references and links that Google's seemingly-litigious defence of its trademark is neither new nor especially objectionable, and points out that Google has been sending out the same letter ever since they first wrote to WordSpy in 2003. He also notes that if anything is going to count as Google's worst PR move it will be the company's conduct in China, a position with which I am very much in agreement.
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