Yeah, was about to point out the same thing. I’m a little surprised - it’s one thing for a global tech giant to build a service that competes with yours, but it’s another to use exactly the same name. Is that actually allowed?

Given someone could register Stripe, Inc. in a different US state than where Stripe, Inc. is incorporated: https://stripe.ian.sh/ I would suggest... arguably, yes? Presumably within the realm of NZ, Neighbourly could go after Google for trademark infringement of some sort, if Google launches it in NZ, but from a global standpoint, what authority does anyone have to protect their name worldwide?

Company names aren't name protection.

The only form of trading name protection is a trademark. So if neighbourly.co.nz wanted to expand into new markets, their next move would be a WIPO filing for their trademark - but you can't just register a trademark in a country and not trade under it there, it's easily challenged.

And after having searched IPONZ's website, it appears that there's not even a registered trademark in NZ for neighbourly - so if Google were to start trading in NZ using "neighbourly", neighbourly.co.nz would have to rely on the passing off provisions of the Fair Trading Act and be able to produce evidence that Google had caused them loss by confusing their customers.

TL;DR - trademarks are important.

As an aside, based on spelling (-our vs. -or) I presume this Google product comes from a non-American market.

Took 7 years until there was "Gmail" in Germany, might be harder for google in NZ though if there's a company and not just an individual who holds the trademark.

No registered trademark on the IPONZ website for neighbourly.

It also happens to be owned by the biggest media company - Stuff/Fairfax NZ, a competitor who isn’t going to take this lightly.

Interesting that Google are using the non-US (British, Aus, NZ) spelling as well...

All the examples (people and neighborhood names, the question about the salwar suit) sound South Asian to me, so maybe it's launching first in India?

In the mission, it mentions Indian cities specifically "In big cities across India, it’s getting harder to get good answers" https://neighbourly.google.com/mission/

Notice the language options in the lower-right corner of the footer. They have English options for the UK and India, but not the US.

I noticed that. I was thinking it was an UnderArmour kind of thing that Google bought out, or, only available in a certain locale.

They'll just name the service "Hungry Jacks" in NZ.