Google tells Chinese imitator Goojje to knock off using their logo

According to news reports, Google has taken legal umbrage with Goojje, a Chinese language search and social-networking site whose logo (above) bears a striking resemblance to the design made famous by Big G. If that weren’t enough, the Goojje logo also features a paw print component, nicked from Baidu, China’s most popular native search engine. Google knock-offs in China are nothing new with a copycat site of YouTube (YouTubecn.com) offering videos from the real YouTube as a way around Chinese censors who’ve blocked the originating site.

Google’s ongoing woes with the Chinese government

Google’s issues with the Chinese government have been plenty in recent months, with disputes over censorship issues and cyberattacks on the G-mail accounts of free speech advocates and human rights critics. The relationship has become so strained that there were several reports of Google leaving China completely, including a post on Google’s own blog, unless authorities didn’t get their collective act together. Ironically, the knock-off site was launched, practically overnight, as a result of that threat when the group behind Goojje saw a potential opening in a very big market. They’ve become cyber-heroes of a sort, with their website shelling out an average of three million page views per day.

Google has stepped things up a notch, sending cease and desist notices to the allegedly infringing site, demanding it quit using the trademarked logo design. Been some action too, perhaps at the ISP level with Goojje no longer resolving at its original domain, www.goojje.com, but redirecting to another site that seems to be offline more than it’s on. Officially, Goojje’s response has been something along the lines of “get bent”.

Goojje is Chinese play on words

For what it’s worth, the phrase Goojje is a clever little word play – apparently the “gle” in Google sounds similar to the Chinese word for “older brother“, while “jje” sounds just like “older sister“. Interesting turn of events, as the Chinese government has been reluctant to enforce intellectual property rights, especially from the west, and are probably still a little sore over the very public shellacking they took in the press, blogs and tech forums last month.

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