Google Sued Over Adwords

[PitBoss]

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Google faces trademark suit over keyword ads
Last modified: January 28, 2004, 6:20 PM PST
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com


A lawsuit filed this week has intensified an ongoing dispute over whether Google's policy of selling ads related to search terms is legal or involves trademark infringement.

American Blind and Wallpaper Factory filed suit against the search giant and its partners, AOL and Netscape, in a New York federal court Tuesday. The suit claims Google's practice of selling text ads related to keyword search terms takes advantage of American Blind's trademarks, given that competitors' ads can appear on results pages turned up by searches for "American wallpaper" and "American blind."

"We spend millions of dollars annually to build brand awareness and cannot stand idle while Google allows our competitors to ride our coattails," said a statement from Steve Katzman, CEO of American Blind.

In November, Google filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., asking the court to rule on whether its keyword-advertising policy is legal. According to the complaint, Google pursued a court ruling after receiving legal threats from American Blind about its advertising policy. American Blind has insisted Google stop selling keyword phrases it claims violate its trademarks.

Google had said it would block advertisers from buying keywords that directly infringe on American Blind's trademarks, including "American Blind Factory" and "DecorateToday" but said it could not block other descriptive phrases American Blind wished to protect. Those phrases included "American wallpaper" and "American blind."

American Blind's suit asks the court to consider its claims and dismiss the Google suit.

The law is unclear in the United States about the responsibility of search engines to police trademarks in paid search. Earlier this year, auction giant eBay asked Google to block advertisers from using its trademark in sponsored search results. eBay listed, in 13 pages, a wide selection of terms related to its trademarks. Google complied with some of eBay's requests. In August, Louis Vuitton sued Google and its French subsidiary for similar alleged trademark infringement, and a French court in October ordered Google to cease the practice and pay a fine.

[Mark Norville]

http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread...5&pagenumber=2

And they say I`m not a genius

Even surprise myself sometimes

[Barry]

I'm sure this has happened in France already. However I have noticed that google does kick some ads with trademark name like 'filofax' for example already.

I don't see the point in sueing google for it apart from for the money. When all you have to do to get it a 'banned' word in adwords is to forward your trademark and the registration information to adwords and they will deny anybody else bidding on it.

[stevectaylor]

Was this not the principle behind Thatchers monetary policy to give the costomer the right to choose and encourage the market to be more competative. Also freedom of speech.

[NaturalInstinct]

Originally posted by Mark Norville
http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread...5&pagenumber=2

And they say I`m not a genius

Even surprise myself sometimes

mark, i completely fail to see how the issue of linking to a site without perminssion and the issue of selling contextual text ads based on search results are connected and what your point is ?

[Mark Norville]

Both are very much related as they are using brand name trademarks.

So doesnt matter if it`s google or joe bloggs, using a name like Microsoft say, if a company wants to be an arse about people using their name they can be.

Just going through DGM and a very well known betting site, doesnt want you to mention it`s name anywhere in promotional text or discriptions.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Wasn't there some conference / seminar in France recently whereby about 150 "no win no fee" lawyers got togther to try and sue Goggle and other search engines on every trademark imaginable, covering similar if not the same type of instance as this?

[Mark Norville]

I would say down to money.

If say for example Brand X is on an affiliate network, if they dont want you mentioning their name etc in discriptions or using their keywords etc in google ads.

This stops search engines etc finding your website based on their name. So not allowing affiliates to use Brand X name, if a person does a search for Brand X it means the companys website will hopefully be at the top of the tree, meaning the surfer will go straight to the companys website and not having to pay a third party any money.

If Brand X uses a network and someone clicks through then this is business they might not have got, so there okish about paying for this bounty.

[DeCal]

This is why they are tight now on the trademarks.

I've been involved in some issues where keywords were declined for trademarks when after i looked into it they clearly weren't trademarked.

It turns out i believe that as soon as anyone mentions that they have a trademark, true or not, they just block it.
This is also the case on pending trademarks which isn't that good for adwords users as your losing potential trafic.

Just my 2 cents worth

[DeCal]

Are you refering to Organic or PPC?

Originally posted by drooper
Let me be clear.

If you are using qksrv link #8827164 which has the text "American Blind and Wallpaper Factory" then your page will not be seeing the light of day in google.