Googled with another search engine

Years ago, I read that at some point, Google, the evil corp itself, changed the way they use their own name to describe the act of searching on the Internet. It used to be that they would "google things," but from that point on, they "were searching with Google."

But why?

According to someone's comment, finding which I'm not going to bother with, it was related to legal stuff. See, when a company's name becomes an eponym, it's harder for that company to fight for limiting their name's usage in the court, because its brand was diluted. So, if "googling" means searching on the Internet, then someone might build a product or service called Googler* (or Googlus Maximus) and argue later in the court that they derived it from a common word. And the court might agree with this view. (Probably not in the U.S., though.) So, in the best legal interest of Google is to protect it's name by sticking to a rather lengthy "search with Google."

This also shows they're not that powerful yet.

So, whenever someone write that they googled something, and someone else replies to them that we should degooglify our language, I prefer to go the other direction: let's dilute their name, so they have weaker arguments in courts. Of course, being alone in this, I don't expect much success in this field. But this shouldn't stop me from trying. It might be petty and small but well thought out.

*Funnily enough, Googler does exist: https://www.tecmint.com/google-commandline-search-terminal/. I don't know if they had legal troubles from The Evil G.

Googlus Maximus is free, however, so be my guest. I recind any rights here and now.