It's also common to say "just google things", but I'm fairly sure (and the domain is even free!) that if I buy justgooglethings.com and setup my own search engine there that Google will find issue with that sooner than later.

The same goes for something like Lego, just because people commonly call similar plastic bricks "lego" doesn't mean that they'll get away with it if they open a store to sell those bricks.

I seem to recall that the problem with "just google things" or LMGTFY is that if "google" becomes a verb (to google) it can't be trademarked once it becomes of common use. That's the reason many companies often issue official statements discouraging the use of their names as verbs when they see them used as such. I think Google themselves did this many years ago.

> if "google" becomes a verb (to google) it can't be trademarked once it becomes of common use.

That ship sailed years ago.

Maybe someone ought to tell Google.

> if I buy justgooglethings.com and setup my own search engine there that Google will find issue with that sooner than later.

Well, LMGTFY has been a thing for as long as I can remember, but it's not a new search engine, it's just a way to snarkily direct people asking questions to Google for their answers. It's also not critical of the Google brand (and although the URL doesn't have the Google name in it, the website title does), so who knows if Google would find more issue with it if it was.

It actually is a search engine now. (It uses Google Search via https://programmablesearchengine.google.com/about/)

>just because people commonly call similar plastic bricks "lego" doesn't mean that they'll get away with it if they open a store to sell those bricks.

But the 'store' isn't like your offbrand Google is it? It's actually probably closer to LMGTFY. They sell Legos and other blocks... and when you buy the other blocks they aren't actually called Legos.

Yeah that’s probably why Lego sued. If they don’t take action to prevent that they can lose their protection of the term.