Google Threatens 9to5Google Over Trademark, Rescinds Threat, Leaves Everyone Frightened

from the just-a-little-evil dept

If you correct for company size, Google is generally pretty decent on intellectual property matters. But, hey, I guess no corporation is perfect. The company whose motto is "don't be evil" is, of course, very big. And they certainly have a very big legal team. I think it might be time for that legal team to get a quick primer on the wider culture at Google and do a quick review on the company motto, because those lawyers apparently suddenly decided that a news site, called 9to5Google, was suddenly violating Google's trademark after a scant five full years in operation.

The threat device Google decided to employ in this case was the news site's use of Google's Doubleclick/Ad Exchange network, which the site claims is a decent profit center for 9to5Google. There had apparently been occasional blips of the network not working in the past, all of which had been quickly resolved. Not the case this time, however.

But this time was different. We have learned that Google's Public Policy Team has decided that, after 5 years of publishing under the 9to5Google name, we have been violating their trademark. Sure we're on Google+, News, Apps, Ads and just about everything else Google as 9to5Google but I guess something changed.

We are a news site dedicated to covering Google, not trying to masquerade as Google, so we're appealing this decision (and if you know anyone at Google please have them run this up the ladder). But there is a big chance we'll have to change our name. Obviously we'll do a redirect so you can enter 9to5google.com in your browser and shouldn't have to update your bookmarks feeds or Twitter or anything.

The post notes that there was never any real hostility between them and Google in the past, so it seems pretty clear this was the legal team suddenly becoming aware of something that was not and had never been a problem in the past, and then making it a problem for whatever reason. It seems clear that the news site had never attempted to pass itself off as a wing of Google and it's difficult to think of another name for a news site that specifically covers Google that wouldn't include Google's name.

Fortunately, it appears the Google Gods changed their minds.

Update: A Google rep now tells us: Our Policy Team has taken another look at this and decided to reinstate ad serving to your site. No further action is needed. Please reach out if you still have any issues with ads on your site.

So we're back..for now – but obviously we're exposed and it might make sense to make a change anyway. Stay tuned.

And that's where the harm and the tad bit of evil comes in: just the threat of exposure of a trademark issue between a massive company like Google and a small news site is likely going to result in the news site changing its name, even as the company walks back the threat. I can completely understand how this happens, but I can also understand the chill that must still be working its way down the spines of the folks running 9to5Google. And that sucks.

Filed Under: 9to5google, advertising, reporting, threats, trademark
Companies: google