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Ask HN: Why is Google tiptoeing around the Olympics?

8 points by ericskiff ↗ HN
Today's Google Doodle is clearly Olympic inspired to go with today's opening ceremonies. Yet, when you mouse over the image, the tooltip which would usually explain the doodle lamely says "hooray for sports"

More interesting and worrisome is that when you click on the image, Google has carefully crafted a query that doesn't say the word "Olympics" anywhere - instead opting to search for "opening ceremony london 2012" and let the results explain themselves.

Strangely, on the results page, there's a whole information and schedule box dedicated to the Olympics, presumably build in cooperation with them.

This seems like overreaching to me - I understand that Google shouldn't be able to use the Olympics brand for free, but they can't even link to search results about the Olympics? Doesn't that set a terrible precedent for whether linking can be construed as trademark and/or copyright infringement?

I'd love to hear opinions and thoughts.

6 comments

[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 26.2 ms ] thread
dglassan
My opinion is that you're overthinking this way too much. Just because a single employee probably chose to link it to "opening ceremony london 2012" doesn't mean they're trying to avoid copyright infringement. It probably means nothing
Foy
Not at all, even in London, businesses that are NOT official sponsors are banned from even hinting that they're related to the Olympics in any way.

There was a of this kind of stuff in the news not too long ago. The IOC is very serious about protecting it's sponsors rights... to the point where even referencing the "summer games" would get you in trouble if you weren't a sponsor. Haha.

ig1
It's nothing to with copyright or trademark, the olympic brand has special protection due to legislation written specifically for it. Unless they're an officially sponsor they can't associate the Olympics with their brand.

That's different from providing information about the olympics.

AznHisoka
Opinion? It's Friday afternoon, and I want to go home and have a beer. My neurons are fried.
deango
You know that google was doing it's best to be in compliance with the strict Olypic IP rules, law and regulations for every country. According to Techdirt, the Olympics in over-protecting their intellectual property -- even to the level of getting host countries to pass special IP laws that only apply to the Olympics...See another techdirt article: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120713/12025919694/olympi...