Facebook hi-jacked generic technical words that had pre-existing meanings:
- “Meta”, which previously defined an abstraction of something about that thing, often referred to as “metadata” in tech jargon (data about the data).
- “Threads”, which previously defined a tree of related commentary.
Twitter hi-jacked:
- “X”, which previously symbolized a conventional variable/placeholder.
Google hi-jacked:
- “Gemini”, which previously referred to an emerging new protocol that actually frees people from abuses by the tech industry by creating a web of documents, not apps. It started in 2019 and Google already sabotaged the new protocol for not serving Google by naming their AI chatbot “Gemini”.
This creates confusion and complexity in conversations. It forces corporate branding into our subconscious in a manipulative way by the mere act of thinking about generic concepts. You cannot speak of /threads/ anymore without Facebook’s product interfering or benefiting. It also sabotages free world technology by cluttering top search results with irrelevant garbage. A search for “Gemini” in /any/ search service is now dominated with Google’s AI chatbot.
If you want to search the web for “Gemini”, now you must use this query string:
gemini -google -ai -chatbot -site:google -site:google.com -deepmind
(edit) Cloudflare also hi-jacked “Cloud Firewall”, which was originally the name of a Firefox plugin that helps you detect and avoid tech giant websites (including Cloudflare). CF named one of their own services “Cloud Firewall” to bury search results linking to a tool to avoid CF.
So, new rule:
If a corporation/legal person wants to trademark a generic word that’s already in use in a technical context, or even use it for a different purpose without trademarking, they must contribute us$ 250 million to repair the damage to the language. They must hire an impartial NGO to develop new branding and use clever catchy wordsmithing to remedy their damage. The corporation behind the hi-jack cannot be involved in the technology behind whatever they hi-jacked.
That page refers to the reverse scenario, where the word is first invented as a trademark and the product became the common generic term. That’s a different problem. The public at least has the option to use the generic term, and they should, so as not to promote a particular supplier. So I say “aramid” not “Kevlar®” because I certainly do not want to promote Dupont.
The big injustice is when a project in the commons like Gemini loses their branding because Google hostily just takes it.
IIUC, you’re saying there is no problem to begin with because a community FOSS project can simply use the trademarked term without concern for the corp enforcing the trademark on the word they hi-jacked. I’m not convinced, but let’s assume that’s true. It’s not the problem I’m exposing. The Gemini project may get away with continued use of the term Gemini, but the damage is done in Google’s act of overloading the term, moving their own definition to position #1 in the dictionary (in effect) and in fact erasing/obsoleting the original meaning because when someone searches for “Gemini” they only see Google’s abusive use of the term. Google has suppressed an idea through sabotage of the language. Even if Google does not sue the Gemini project, the damage is done.