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Family Of Man Who Came Up With Googol Demanding A Piece Of Google
from the oh,-come-on.... dept
Stunning. Someone should write a book about the amazing things people (who don't work at Google) have done in their attempts to cash in on the insane amount of greed that seems to grip people when it comes to the upcoming Google IPO. There's already been a scam of someone selling fake pre-IPO Google shares who convinced a number of Wall Street insiders and big company execs to shell out. Now, however, we have the descendants of the man who came up with the term "googol" (on which Google based their name) claiming that Google is unfairly profiting off of their intellectual property. No, seriously. They haven't yet taken legal action, but are trying to persuade Google that they deserve pre-IPO shares in the company. They make it out as if this is them being nice - and suggesting that it's Google's ethical obligation to give them shares, or they may need to sue. It shouldn't be at all surprising to find out that the descendant leading this charge is a Silicon Valley "compensation specialist." She complains that she wrote the company in 1988 (I assume this is a typo, as the company was founded in 1998) and they didn't write back - which she attributes to them either being busy or arrogant. I think it's fair to attribute this latest move by this family to greed.
Reader Comments
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people often suck
It's always depressing to see people so willingly degrade themselves, their true nature revealed by greed. It demeans us all and exposes the lack of good conscience and imagination present in most people.
I hope they get what they deserve; a very large legal bill.
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Well c'mon Google
These folks definitely hurt their "case" by getting a pro to mumble about lawsuits. But c'mon let's face it, throwing a few shares their way would be The Right Thing To Do. It's not like Google is borderline insolvent or anything like that.
Google says it's not evil. Welll... is it "evil" to get fabulously rich with the help of a memorable trademark ... and then be a bunch of skinflints? Purraps not. But it's undeniably unsporting of them.
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Re: Well c'mon Google
"But c'mon let's face it, throwing a few shares their way would be The Right Thing To Do"
The right thing to do? Why? Because a family thinks it owns the rights to a number -- which, by the way, happens NOT to be the company's name?
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Me too! Me too!
My great-great-great-grandfather invented the word "yahoo", so I should get shares in that company.
Other words my ancestors invented are: ebay (my great aunt first used it to refer to the East Bay), Micron (my ancestor was on the board that came up with the metric system), Intel (I had a crazy great-uncle who liked shortening words like "intellegence") and a bunch of others.
I see a whole legal cottage industry springing up over this one.
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Re: Me too! Me too!
I once thought of the word google back in 1968 so I believe I too am entitled to pre IPO stock.
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I agree
This is a good point, because without the use of the well-known googol trademark, the google search engine would definitely have been a massive failure
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We're all rich!
Ooh, I've got a good one.
I had a friend who's family were planning to sue the producers of Star Trek because a planet in the series was (coincidentally) named with their last name.
Hell, if they can sue for that, I'll go out and sue evey map-maker that has ever lived. Yay!
(My last name is 'Bay' if it's not obvious.)
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hi
hey i was wondering who came up with google in the first place cause it is for a school project
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