Google Print gets new name

Google's controversial Google Print offering has a new name, but even a Google product marketing manager doesn't expect the new name to placate critics.

In a posting entered Thursday to Google's blog, Product Marketing Manager Jen Grant wrote that Google Print is now called Google Book Search. She said that the company has received comments from users excited about the prospect of Google Print making it easier for them to print documents. The service, however, was designed to let users search within books and has nothing to do with actual printing.

The Web site address has changed from http://print.google.com to http://books.google.com.

The new name is expected to help users better understand the service, although Grant notes in the post that the company doesn't think the name change will affect the opinion some people have of the program.

She's referring to the chilly reception Google Book Search has received from certain quarters. Two writers groups, The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, have separately filed lawsuits charging Google with copyright infringement. They say that Google infringes on copyright when it scans in the contents of books, which it does in order to create the database for Google Book Search, without asking for permission from authors or publishers.