OnHolidayGroup was breathing a sigh of relief a little prematurely over its cheekily titled Google Bypass project - Big G has ordered it stop using the name immediately.
The project is a personal affiliate scheme on Facebook that allows users to get rewards for recommending travel products (OHG's HolidayNights product, to be exact) to friends.
Earlier this week OHG released figures for its first month of operations and some assumed the Mountain View search giant had either not noticed Google Bypass or didn't care.
Unfortunately the beast has finally risen from its slumber and lawyers in London acting on behalf of Google contacted OHG today with the threat of an injunction, asking for immediate cessation of the use of the name Google Bypass.
Law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse made the order for "passing off and infringement" of Google's trade mark.
Bruised, OHG says it is does not want an expensive fight against the legal might of Google so has simply renamed Google Bypass to G-Bypass.
CEO Steve Endacott says:
"I completely fail to see how a customers could believe we were pretending to be Google, when we are telling people to Bypass Google. I can understand them wanting to protect their brand name, but fail to see why I can not tell customers how much of their hard earned holiday money has to be paid to Google."
OHG says it has taken legal advice and "Google can not possible object" to it.
Famous last words, maybe...