Google readies for action against Dutch smut site

Google is girding its loins for action against Pornoogle.nl, a Dutch site which indexes 26,000 movies from 11 Dutch online porn companies and shows previews. Site owner Ruben Doctor has several porn sites under different names. He claims name Pornoogle actually means porn ogle (to stare at porn) and is "just a joke". Jeroen …

[Andy Worth]

I doubt they'll win

They've been unsuccessful in an awful lot of these cases, if he has anything other than just a squatting page there (I'm not going to check from work) then he has every right to the domain.

So.....Go cry, Google emo kid.

[George Johnson]

All in a name

What on earth is with the Pr0n industry and daft names? Seriously, Ruben Doctor?

[jolly]

Intolerable!

"Jeroen Schouten, legal counsel to Google Netherlands, told Dutch newsite Webwereld that the combination of the name Google, porn, and search machine is intolerable."

I'm assuming Jeroen has safe-search switched on.

[Tim]

echos of xerox?

Google's ubiquity and entry into the english dictionary means they may lose the rights to their own name if they are not careful, in exactly the same way Xerox did in the eighties. Anyone can use the word xerox now (meaning to copy something), in the same way that googling now means to look up on the internet (not just using the google site).

[Neil]

Shut it, Google!

It's hard enough trying to find available domain names without companies like Google buying up anything and everything that even remotely resembles their business name.

To be so successful that other people can make profit merely by having a similar name. Such a travesty!

[Avalanche]

@George Johnson

Ruben is common Dutch first name, while Doctor is - while not common - also a perfectly normal Dutch last name.

[Ash]

A new name

Porngoogdash.nl

[Steve]

@Tim

You'll find that you can use the word google now, try it, google google google, look at that, the IP police haven't got me.

If you use Xerox in a business name I think you might find that you'll end up in court though.

[Frank Bough]

@Tim

"Google's ubiquity and entry into the english dictionary means they may lose the rights to their own name if they are not careful, in exactly the same way Xerox did in the eighties."

Actually 'xerox' (like 'kleenex' and unlike 'hoover') is part of the AMERICAN language, not ours.

[Elmer Phud]

Porngoogle

"Porngoogle actually means porn ogle"

Almost there, try 'porn go ogle' as defence and explain that using underscore or hyphens just confuses people so they dropped the connectors to make it easier for punters to enter the URL.

Absolutely no reference to Google whatsoever, nope none, nada, nothing. Honest.

[Phil]

Disappointing

I can't get porngoogle.nl or .com

Guess I'll do some work then...

[Dave Bell]

IP law--do the lawyers know when to stop?

Getting a lot of free publicity. On this one, my bias is towards Google.

But I keep hearing of far sillier cases, from the shop in Scotland owned by a Mr. MacDonald, through to Lockheed getting antsy about CGI models of WW2 bombers.

porngoogle for a search engine isn't that sort of stupidity.

But the lawyers never seem to target people who can fight back. Another cease & desist letter--it's almost more effort to do the billing.

[Maty]

@Frank

'Actually 'xerox' (like 'kleenex' and unlike 'hoover') is part of the AMERICAN language, not ours.'

Now now, if you are going to be xenophobic, try to be accurate. There is no American language. There are American languages - many of them - and English is one. 'Kleenex' and 'xerox' are part of a dialect of English usually called US English, and the US produces its own dictionaries, which are quite properly called English dictionaries.

If you don't believe me, google the topic :)

[Anonymous Coward]

And I finally get the joke after all these years...

Google = Go Ogle

I've been using google to go ogle for years, and I've never ever made the connection. I actually beleived it was a missspelling of Googol.

Sheesh. Paris: Because I'm obviously her intellectual equal.

[Guy]

@Maty

Shouldn't that be Go Ogle the topic?

[Anonymous Coward]

PornGoogle

I prefer: GoOglePorn.com

[Iain McG]

@ getting the joke after all these years

Google has nothing to do with "go ogle". It WAS a misspelling of googol.

http://daily.stanford.org/article/2003/2/12/fromGoogolToGoogle

[Dave]

on 'googol'

are there yet one googol (or more) web sites?

has the most-used web searcher collected that quantity?

As to other brand names entering common parlance, I think but am not sure, that use with the initial letter in lower case is permitted and not an offence, use of the capital initial is inferred as intent to mean the original enterprise

When I altavista for GOOGLE all the results I get seem to be about Google

So any website that uses an url of the form <whatever>google should not be asked to cease and desist, but <whatever>Google could be so asked...

[Robin Lettice]

Typo in article

The original article had a typo in it: the website was mistakenly down as porngoogle.nl, whereas the actual address is pornoogle.nl. Apologies.

[Kanhef]

@Dave

URLs are case-insensitive, so that doesn't make a difference. Generally, courts have ruled that similar names are permissible only if the businesses are sufficiently different that there is no chance of confusion. For example, a restaurant named MacDonald's would get a cease-and-desist letter before it opened. A farm equipment supplier with the same name would have no problems.

[ratfox]

@Typo

Aaaaah! That's why I couldn't... Ah... Erm... Nothing nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ratfox

Dont worry, your not missing much ;(

[Chris]

Ah yes, and easy typo to make

Of course Google are perfectly correct about this... because it's obviously far too easy to make this typo... I mean everybody somewhere has typed 'porn' instead of 'g' when going to a URL, and as a result thousands of dutch people are surprised and shocked to see this website instead of the friendly innocent Google search page due to a simple mistake, when all they wanted to do is search the web!!!

Yeah, I can see how this is a severe threat to Google - shut down the site now, I say!

Er, mine's the pornreen jacket.... er - I mean the green one...

[Jim]

So...

Google is now claiming any word that ends in 'oogle' is a trademark infringement? WTF?

And for those who haven't been to the site, it is titled "porno ogle" but obviously underscores... etc etc.