If I read the above exert correctly, anybody who bid on GoogleWhack.com [which they might not have backordered, but found the auction via DropCatch front page] could be held liable for any legal ramifications that follow?
Yes, and? That's true regardless of whether they put it in their terms or not.
"Googling" has appeared in various lyrics at various points, unrelated to the engine
So? The the lyrics of American Pie include "...drove my Chevy to the levee", in the context of singing about driving one. It doesn't make Chevy a generic word for cars. Paul Simon has an entire song called "Kodachrome". So what?
But, as pointed out above, the Google example has already been run up the flagpole to the relevant US federal appeals court, with the unsurprising result:
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/05/20/court-finds-google-not-generic/id=83476/
I mean, sure, if someone wants to argue that things have changed dramatically since March of this year, they are welcome to try, but in the context of a domain forum where, in general, we are not talking about people with the resources for a serious legal challenge to anything, it's just irresponsible to casually suggest "oh, no worries, its generic". I mean, sure, its fine to do that if one doesn't care about the consequences to people who might mistakenly believe that pseudonymous people on an internet forum have any idea what they are talking about.
Genericide is very rare, because (a) the legal presumptions are against it - in other words, it has to be shown by overwhelming evidence, and (b) people who casually claim it are usually ignorant of the evidence on the other side.
Three perennial examples are Kleenex, Band-Aid, and Xerox. A LOT of people will refer to any facial tissue as a "Kleenex", any adhesive bandage as a "Band-Aid" and any photocopy as a "Xerox" - and those usages have been a heck of a lot more common than Google. The way these things go, and this kind of thing is noted in the Google decision summarized at the article linked above, is that the person claiming genericide will come in with an assortment of press clippings, etc. where someone referred to a tissue as a Kleenex or whatever and suggest that the mark owner hasn't been policing their mark and thus it has become generic. And then, most every time, the TM owner comes in with their "enforcement file" - the collection of letters for which they employ a small staff to (a) scour publication indices like Nexis for press mentions of their mark, (b) identify the publisher, (c) check their backfile, and (d) send, or remind, the editor, reporter and publishing company a note concerning usage of the mark. Most of the time, the majority of press references used by the party claiming genericide will have already been followed up with an enforcement letter from the TM owner.
There are people who believe kooky stuff and spread it like a virus. I had this one guy pestering me years ago about how he could ABSOLUTELY PROVE that Coca-Cola wasn't a valid trademark. Sent me a ton of emails with his proof, which essentially boiled down to the same case decided in Coca-Cola's favor back in 1917 against the claim it was merely descriptive of two key ingredients (cola extract and coca extract) that are used in it. He wanted me to take his case for free, since it would make me famous! I finally had to block his email address, since he became increasingly upset that I failed to recognize his genius.