Am I allowed to say that? Not sure.

Amusing, yet serious, article from the Seattle Times about a letter they reportedly received from Google’s legal beagles about the appropriate use of the term “Google”, which may or may not be a verb, depending on who you ask.

They provide a few helpful examples:

“Appropriate: He ego-surfs on the Google search engine to see if he’s listed in the results.

“Inappropriate: He googles himself.

“Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party.

“Inappropriate: I googled that hottie.”

It’s a matter of debate whether it’s appropriate or inappropriate for a market-leading company worth $113 billion to use the word “hottie” in official correspondence”.

Heh. Careful how you Google. Erm – careful how you use the Google (TM) Search Engine when describing said search engine henceforth…