A survey from the market research firm of Millward Brown puts Google™ at the top of all global brands in terms of consumer recognition. I have no idea whether the survey is or isn't accurate, though it strikes me as a plausible result.
The interesting thing, though, is this. As those of you who know trademark law know well, a term cannot be a trademark if it has become a "generic" descriptor for goods or services. Lots of previously-trademarked names -- aspirin, cellophane, escalator -- began life as brand names, but over time became "genericized" and lost their trademark protection.
"Google," of course, is used generically all the time -- as in "google this, will you?" or "I googled her this morning and found out that . . ." The most well-recognized brand name in the world is conservatively worth billions of dollars; yet I am not aware of Google, Inc. doing anything to try to stem the genericization of their name. (Xerox, by contrast, with a much less valuable brand name than Google's, spends scads of money taking out advertisements pleading with consumers not to use their name as a generic description of photocopiers or photocopying services). That strikes me as odd, I must say -- perhaps they've decided that there's nothing they can do about that usage? Or that they get plenty of pay-back from having a name that consumers use generically?
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As long as they own the url www.google.com, you would think they'd be happy with the way the term is spreading into the vernacular.
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For what it's worth...my IP professor mentioned in class that Google has been taking measures to prevent "google" from becoming generic. But he didn't identify anything specific. Maybe I'll ask him about that.
That is to say, it seems to me that for a brand name to become genericized, it must go through a phase when it becomes synonymous with the general term (Google = search online, Xerox = photocopy, Kleenex = tissue) precisely because the brand is so dominant that the terms might as well be synonyms. The catch is that when the company in question loses its super-dominant status, the term may stick, and generic status has been achieved.
To this day, people probably use the term "kleenex" most often to refer to Kleenex brand tissues. But they also use it to refer to other brands. The question is whether the term "google" will get to that point. Only time will tell!
In large parts of the US, "coke" is a generic term for sodas.
If I ask someone to google something, I want them to find the information on the Internet, and I really don't care how. Same as if I ask someone to xerox something, I don't care if they actually use a Xerox copier.
You can't easily perform a web search with other than Google; you only have a few choices, unlike the many people making copying machines, and by now it's rather hard to set up in direct competition to Google too.
So googling will most likely be done with Google while xeroxing may never have anything to do with Xerox.
Xerox have more to lose.
Anecdotal evidence concerning the meaning of "Google" as a verb. Yesterday I asked my secretary to Google something (meaning "search for this term on Google search engine). She searched Yahoo and didn't find the result I wanted.
You are kidding, right? I perform web searches all day long, and almost never use Google.
Similarly with Google, what harm do they suffer if the term legally becomes "generic"? The name IS the business. Even if they legally could, Yahoo would never benefit from an ad calling for internet users to "google what you want with Yahoo!" It's a very different situation from, say, the Yellow Pages, where a multitude of competitors all want to be considered the "real" yellow pages. There, a trademark fight might have some meaning. But with Google? I just don't see it. I think their business interests are best served by having it become a generic term for "search on the internet."
Second, Google has taken considerable efforts to avoid its "genericizing." The Los Angeles Daily Journal did an article on this as early as 2002.
I am aware that this is a huge issue. I just can't for the life of me understand why that should be so. I'm with PatHMV.
ask
lycos
microsoft
yahoo
How hard is that?
Along those lines, I think that Ask Jeeves made a bad mistake when they changed their name to Ask (and, I'm sure, paid a pretty penny for the domain). Some people upset about the prospects that Google was taking over the known universe were saying at the time, "will you jeeves this for me?" as a form of protest. They killed it overnight because saying "Ask this for me" is too generic to make any sense at all.
If you use IE7, go up to the "Live Search" box, click the drop down arrow, and select "Find More Providers". You will find all that I listed and more. Even without that, it's not like nobody ever heard of Yahoo or Microsoft. I'll admit that I use Google frequently, but if I was behind a firewall that blocked Google, I wouldn't have any problem figuring out an alternative.
But Google has and will keep one advantage the others lacked: google.com. You aren't going to get to a competitor by typing "google" into the address bar.
It made a minor splash at the time, with many tech blog posts shortly thereafter making conscious references to avoiding the use of Google as a verb, lest they get in trouble.
But, did he google "search engines" or Google "search engines"?
I miss the days when Yahoo would give me the choice of five search engines to use, and each would give me different hits. Now I still use Yahoo because I hate looking at a white screen.
WHOI: in the Appalachians it's dope.
Who said genericism isn't a big issue?