I wonder how much this can end up contributing to the Kleenex-ification of a brand or a term. You search for firefox and random other browsers come up. Now browsers in general are associated with the firefox term. Of course, when it comes down to it, there isn't much difference between browsers anyway, the UI is different but they all need to work with the same websites, and people have been using specific application names in place of the type of data/work ("Excel file" being used to refer to a CSV).

▲

derefr 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

…you might have an argument there for this practice of rival-brand-mark sponsored-placement squatting constituting an odd type of trademark infringement.

Imaging if PepsiCo paid grocers to shelve cans of Pepsi right beside cans of Coke, sharing the same inventory tag that just says “Coca Cola”. Coke would definitely be able to sue for something about that, right? Well, isn’t this the same?

	▲	frbr 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Paying to parasitize the brand recognition and trust of a competitor has become the norm. he comparison to retail product squatting perfectly illustrates why this feels like an unfair infringement, not just aggressive marketing.
	▲	notpushkin 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Imaging if PepsiCo paid grocers to shelve cans of Pepsi right beside cans of Coke I think that part is true? Inventory tag doesn’t matter too much here. Better analogy would be putting Pepsi syrup into a Coke-branded fountain, maybe?

▲

notpushkin 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Now browsers in general are associated with the firefox term.

Pardon? I’ve never heard a human call a browser “firefox” (as a generic term), or “chrome” for that matter (though people do assume you use Chrome by default now).