In the last year or so, Google has reached the apotheosis of branding: The corporation has become a verb. Very few corporate names can make a similar boast, other than “xerox” or “fedex.” In fact, “googling” something has become such a common phrase that the online dictionary Word Spy recently listed “google” as a generic term for hunting for info online. To quote:

(GOO.gul) v. To search for information on the Web, particularly by using the Google search engine; to search the Web for information related to a new or potential girlfriend or boyfriend.
—Googling pp.

Google lawyers were not quite as flattered. If your corporate name becomes a catchphrase, it’s used to describe your competitors, too. When I say I’m going to “xerox” something, most of the time these days I’m using a Canon photocopier; if I ask you to pass me a “Kleenex,” it’s just as likely you’ll hand me something made by Scottie. So by defining “google” as the verb for searching on a search engine, WordSpy was attributing the particularly-good techniques of Google to folks like Altavista or Teoma. As CNET noted:

Companies risk losing their trademarks if the terms become a part of common usage and they can’t show they’ve tried to contest it. In one high-profile case in Austria, Sony lost the right to its Walkman trademark in 1994 after it failed to seek a retraction from a dictionary publisher that defined the term generically as a portable cassette player.

So the legal letters went out, and Google asked WordSpy to add a little clarification to the definition. It now reads:

(GOO.gul) v. To search for information on the Web, particularly by using the Google search engine; to search the Web for information related to a new or potential girlfriend or boyfriend. (Note that Google™ is a trademark identifying the search technology and services of Google Technologies Inc.)
—Googling pp.

Sometimes, success can be as much of a hassle as failure.