You Can't Google "on" Yahoo, But You Can "from" Yahoo

Over on the Google Blog, the fine folks at Google get into how we should be using their word in a sentence when it refers to other search engines.

According to the Google gods, if you use Google as a verb and you are referring to any other search engine, it's "Bad. Very, very bad." This is because: "You can only 'Google' on the Google search engine. If you absolutely must use one of our competitors, please feel free to 'search' on Yahoo or any other search engine."

Last I checked Google and I both live in a free country. So if I want to google from Yahoo, I actually can via Yahoo Shortcuts. Or, I can google using Yubnub or on AOL. In addition, technically, using Google's own new CSE program, I can google from anywhere.

I reiterate that this is just silly. If Google doesn't want to be part of the pop culture, just say so. I am sure everyone else in the search space would be delighted to play this role. Google, can't we just say "I googled from Yahoo." Pretty please.

Comments

[mosage]

Google is in danger of losing the rights to their name as a trademark if it becomes simply a word, like elevator and other former brand names they cite in their blog entry. You're asking them to let you do that to them, and implying that they're being silly in protesting. Far from it. I think they're being about as nice about it as they could possibly be, but they are correct. It's their name, not a word, but in danger of becoming a word. They're nervous about it.

[David Scott Lewis]

Steve, I'm delighted to see somebody of your stature stating what should be obvious to Google. For a brilliant company with many brilliant employees, their resistance to using "Google" as a verb is plain ridiculous.

I wonder how many people have bought Kleenex or Band-Aids because of the ubiquity of their respective brands. Google doesn't get this -- and this makes me wonder about their PR agency and if Google is really in touch with the outside world (or cloistered in their Mountain View existence, with their "Embassies" dotted throughout the world in places like Beijing).

[Nick Dynice]

Googleing for love in all the wrong places.
Googleing for love in too many faces.
Googleing their eyes, Googleing for traces
of what I'm dreaming of.

Hoping to Google a friend and a lover,
I'll bless the day I that I Googled
another heart, Googleing for love!

[gianandrea facchini]

to me it does remind the coke story. i mean everywhere in the world a lot of people just ask for a coke meaning a carbonated soft drink and not necessarily coca cola. i'm not aware that coke has ever complained about that. when you are cutting edge and you become the name for an action this may return to you as free of charge advertising, if you are so smart to play with it.

[Andrew Denny]

The Google Blog isn't being silly, it's just being tedious. It would be less irritating if they'd not been so disneyesquely cloying. Here is a hopefully helpful example:

Example: "I find Google soooo ******g annoying with their pedantic attitude to the word 'googling'"

Our lawyers say: Good. Very, very good. There's no question here that you're referring to Google Inc. as a company. Use it widely, and hey, tell a friend. >

Now which of us would complain if they phrased it like that?

[marc thompson]

They're not being silly. They're protecting their company name and trademark. (and doing so in a nicer manner than a lot of companies). And it is not analogous to "coke" for Coca-Cola, since "coke" is defined as "carbon fuel produced by distillation of coal."

[David Sterry]

Reminds me of a discussion that'd be had after a game of D&D. Google is such a nerd.

[gianandrea facchini]

mark, you are right about coke from the literal point of view and my english sometimes betray me. my point was asking for carbonated soft drink, no matter the brand, using the word coke.

[Frank Johnson]

I've been in the position that these folks are - trying to tell the masses how to use a term that is a registered trademark. I must say that the folks at Google have done a masterful job of presenting the facts, but in a lighthearted manner. Believe me, it's not easy to write in a lighthearted manner about trademark law.

[Devon]

Well it's simple really...it's not Googling, if it's done on another search engine. Just like it's not "skydiving", if you're underwater. Why don't people get this??

[Pete]

I'd question the, shall we say, "situational awareness" of anyone that uses the verb "google" when using Yahoo!

I've never heard anyone say something like "I'm googling for widgets" when they aren't actually using Google.

Yes the word Google, or google has started to transcend into the English language as meaning 'to search for something on the internet'. But generally that definition is completed by 'to search for something on the internet using Google'.

Perhaps this is because Google's market share is so large? Are that many people actually aware of other search engines? Do they even see Yahoo! and MSN as search engines. There is so much other junk on their homepages that it's possible they aren't viewed in the same way.

I know that whenever I or my peers say "google for it" we mean it literally. Use Google.

[Gareth Davies]

The term "Vacuum Cleaner" was introduced by Hoover as a way to protect its trademark name.

Have a look at what happened to SONY Walkman:

REF: http://www.out-law.com/page-2651

An Austrian court has ruled that Sony does not have exclusive rights to the Walkman name for personal stereos. The court referred to the appearance of the word in a German dictionary without reference to Sony.

Ananova reports that Sony sued Austrian wholesaler Time Tron because it described rivals’ personal stereos as Walkmans in its sales catalogue. That was in 1994. The country’s supreme court this week ruled that the name is too generic to be owned.

A Sony spokeswoman criticised the judgment describing the Walkman as “our own property and not a common noun to be used by anybody.”

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines “Walkman” as a noun, without reference to Sony. It defines the word as “a type of personal stereo." By comparison, in its definition of “Hoover,” it refers to “a vacuum cleaner (properly one made by the Hoover company).”