I just read a comment thread on a TEDtalk where someone says:

Anyone can take things to ridiculous extremes. If I was to pick on you, I would have pointed out that Google is a trademark and the use of “googleable” actually diminishes the value of the trademark.

and it gave me pause. Do you think telling someone to “google it” is an infringement on Google’s trademark?

I’m not sure myself, though I suppose legalese being what it is, there’s probably technical truth there. Though it seems silly to me, since “googleable,” “google it,” et al are self-referential anyway, indicating the specifically named service that was the original, and still most popular function of the company. If someone told me to go google something, my first instinct wouldn’t be to jump right over to Yahoo or Bing for a quick web search.

Though thinking like that is probably what got Bandaid and Xerox into their respective situations (though really, does people still say they’re going to “xerox something”?).

What do you think?