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October 26, 2006, 02:38 PM ET
Google vs. the Evolution of Language
Most CEOs would kill to have their company’s name work its way into the lexicon. But officials at Google — one of a rarefied group of businesses that has actually achieved that honor — say becoming a verb isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In a post on the company’s official blog, Michael Krantz calls Google’s absorption into common parlance “an honor that’s simultaneously highly flattering and faintly unsettling.” The unsettling part, he says, is that “Google” has in many cases become a catch-all term for Internet searching, not a specific reference to the company’s own search engine: Google is a trademark identifying Google Inc. and our search technology and services. While we’re pleased that so many people think of us when they think of searching the web, let’s face it, we do have a brand to protect, so we’d like to make clear that you should please only use “Google” when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services.
“If you absolutely must use one of our competitors,” pleads Mr. Krantz, “please feel free to ‘search’ on Yahoo or any other search engine.” Google’s grammatical badgering seems relatively good-natured, but it hasn’t been very well received in the blogging community, as CNET’s Blogma points out: “Last I checked,” one blogger wrote, “Google and I both live in a free country.” —Brock Read
Categories: Search-Engines, Company-Watch
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