PPCBidder - 7:39 pm on Dec 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

But what happens when an advertiser uses the {Keyword} ad feature in the title of an ad that is in an adgroup with a trademarked keyword? Does Google detect that the "dynamic" title now contains a trademarked name? Does it automatically display the alternate title?

Funny this comes up right now. I recently got busted for this very thing on a term I didn't even realize was a trademark - linking to a competitive site. I glossed over it as a match is the keyword tool, checking it off without much thought.

I read around and google's main point is that the user is not confused and there is no dilution if the term is not in ad text (edit - which now has precedent, woo!), but with my dynamic ad that is exactly what happened in my case.

I got a nice cease and desist order from a rather big california law firm. In addition they demanded to know statistics for the keyword and profits made from the keyword. I thought that could mean more trouble was coming even if I ceased to use the term. Luckily it didn't, I know often times the point is just to scare you into never using the term again for sure, but my spend was also low - under $50. If it had ended up in the thousands or something I wonder if everything would have been dropped so easily.

If I just used the term as a trigger (or as an aff for the same company) the situation would have been less hairy (seen by how google won the geico case), although the company involved may have still asked me to cease and desist.

As you state, I think the only major problem is dynamic insertion into titles/text when linking to a different URL. As recently as a week ago this did happen, so I'm scanning my dynamic ads now to make sure I don't have any other potential liabilities on my hands.