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Friday, July 29, 2011

A Pair of Googlers

by Thomas O'Toole

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In yesterday's ruling in Trafficschool.com Inc. v. Edriver Inc., No. 08-56518 (9th Cir., July 28, 2011), Chief Judge Alex Kozinski used the term "googler" to describe a person searching the internet via the Google search engine. He was writing about allegedly deceptive sponsored links that would "take the googler to DMV.org."

I didn't recall coming across the term "googler" in any prior opinion, so I checked Lexis. Turns that one other judge got there first, the only other use of "googler" in a court opinion that I could find. Judge Richard A. Posner employed the term "Googler" way back in 2004, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital v. Ashcroft, 363 F.3d 923, 929 (7th Cir. 2004) ("Some of these women will be afraid that when their redacted records are made a part of the trial record in New York, persons of their acquaintance, or skillful 'Googlers,' sifting the information contained in the medical records concerning each patient's medical and sex history, will put two and two together, 'out' the 45 women, and thereby expose them to threats, humiliation, and obloquy.")

The related verbs "googled" and "Googled" appear in 47 judicial opinions in the Lexis database. For some reason, "lexiser" and "lexised" appear not at all.
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