“Google’s rival Gmail service had created confusion and uncertainty amid potential clients of his firm, said Mr Smith.”

Apparently a couple of firms who didn’t register gmail.com are disputing Google’s use of the term because they were using it first. Full story here (via), but what really interests me is that quote. “Confusion and uncertainty” was being created by Google’s move and this is a terrible thing, for where would we be if all companies and businesses were allowed to create confusion and uncertainty all willy nilly?

Well, for a start we’d be shopping. My tax rebate came through last week and I’ve been doing some shopping, mainly for techy things like batteries, a USB 2.0 card, DVD-Rs, that sort of thing, and it’s been a nightmare. Do I need DVD-Rs or DVD+Rs? (-Rs are preferable but I went with +Rs.) Will this USB card work in my Mac? (Yes with a 3rd party driver that the manufacturers don’t link to on their site.) Is £8.99 a high price for rechargeable batteries? (Yes, but I’d bought them by the time I realised this.) These little things that shouldn’t be a problem and on their own aren’t really all add up to an experience not too dissimilar to a state of confusion and uncertainty.

And it’s not just on the high street – online can be just as bad. Having spent an age tunneling though the catalogue at Dabs for the right memory card I was so relieved to have finally made it through the confusion and uncertainty that I didn’t notice they still had my old address on file and thanks to their incredibly efficient system it was dispatched within minutes of my pressing the big button. Unfortunately their incredibly efficient system is efficient because they don’t have any communication with their customers at all and so can’t cancel or alter an order, so it’s going to Kingstanding. At least there’s no confusion or uncertainty about that, just a big fat pain in the arse.

There was one point of victory in Halfords where I popped in to gaze at the bike stuff and find out what they charge for a safety check (£10.99) – I was approached by a young chap talking 10 to the dozen about saving me £50 on my next purchase. I tried to stop him but he kept going until I held up my arms and sternly announced that if he didn’t shut up I would never buy anything from this shop ever again, at which point he did shut up and walk away. It’s a real shame as most of the assistants in that branch are good helpful people.

Perhaps the worst example was the in-store radio at PC World pushing anti-virus software in a tone that seemed to imply we’d all die a horrible death without it, but that’s not too surprising.

So creating confusion and uncertainty would appear to be standard procedure amongst companies these days. I can’t see that Google has done anything particularly unusual in that regard, especially as they appear to have done so unintentionally unlike most retail outlets.