Forbidden Words

Notes

Words that we have spoken for hundreds or thousands of years are being stolen from us

Here is a selection of words in the English language that have been trademarked by technology corporations. These words used to belong to us all; now they belong to Google, Microsoft, Apple or one of a dozen others.

I know what you're thinking. These words aren't really forbidden. They haven't really been stolen from us. We can still used them whenever we want to refer to pieces of fruit or glass openings in walls. Right?

Wrong. Try publishing a web site called PlaceBook and see how long it takes Facebook to send in the heavies. Or try developing cross-platform software called wxWindows and wait for the Microsoft word-police to come knocking at your door.

You might think it's inadvisable to choose a name for any project that contains the word book or window, but the fact is that there are only so many words in the English language, and when words like cell, edge, sun and wall become off-limits, it's difficult to come up with any name for a project that won't provoke one technology corporation or another. Now I come to think of it, things made thinkable contains the words thing (an Amazon trademark) and think (an IBM trademark).

Facebook did not invent the words face or book; indeed, it took the idea of a facebook from the schools that have been putting them out for decades. Microsoft did not invent the word window; it did not even invent the idea of a window as part of a graphical user interface, rather, it copied the idea from Xerox and Apple. We are content for corporations to adopt words and ideas from the public domain; this is how innovation happens and commerce thrives. Without embarrassment, they then turn around and forbid us from using the words and ideas they have stolen from us.

These big corporations shut down smaller companies or non-profit projects through bullyboy tactics. Facebook, for instance, cannot legally register face and book as trademarks, so instead it forces its users to agree not to use these words through its user agreement. Microsoft's insistence that it owns the word windows wouldn't stand up in court under most circumstances, but no individual or small organisation can afford to say no to a polite request from Microsoft, with its legions of lawyers and virtually unlimited financial resources.

The reality is that these words no longer belong to us. Until we remember that corporations exist for people's sake, not the other way around, these words and countless others will remain, for many purposes, forbidden.