I picked up #2 position at a nickel a pop. I half expected Google to come back and say, hey you cannot do that, but the existence of other companies under this category, seems to indicate otherwise.
We sell complementary products (but are not competitors), ie (they sell only widgets, we sell widget bags), so I expect a half decent CTR rate.
Their's got to be a catch. I don't think they can prove trademark infringement, and why bother, we are not a direct competitor.
Has anybody had any experiences with this.
They're great phrases in my opinion. Some of my highest CTR are on domain name ads.
I guess the best move for advertisers is to put the copyrighted keywords in and let Google cancel them if someone complains.
[adwords.google.com...]
Once on that page, there are additional links to further info.
AWA
"Do it and keep quiet about it until someone stops you"
Once our lawyers sent in the info, the name was removed within a day.
G doesn't do anything without something official, so until someone asks them to stop with all the proper legal mumbo jumbo, it seems you're pretty much free to go for any keywords.
"it seems you're pretty much free to go for any keywords."
I dont think thats how it works.
You can abuse peoples trademarks and cause damage to their business name and reputation in lots of ways including via adwords which is why google have made it relatively easy for trademark owners to complain to them.
The simplest attack an offended party may take is indeed to contact google directly with the legal details to get your advert removed for that word, if they choose that route it is a relatively easy one.
However they dont have to take that route on its own.
Often I think they go that route because its quick and easy for them and cheap. They will know that there are no significant consequences for you the offender, no penalty for your actions, heck you dont even loose that adwords account.
So if you were to abuse the good name of "large rich litigeous organisation who likes to set examples and likes to get punative damages and make hay about it in the media" then you might find that contacting google would not be first on their priorities.
I can think of plenty of organisations with deep pockets whom I would not at the moment dream of attacking this way despite that its against UK law anyhow.
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There have been several cases in the U.S. where the offending party was forced to remove the trademarked terms, but with no monetary damages rewarded.
I'm sure that if you defame the site, then the defamatory remarks punitive damages can kick in, but this doesn't seem to be the standard at present.
According to some lawyers I know, the judges are hesitant to levy fines and apply a lot of the laws to net stuff as the laws the suits are being brought under are quite old and the net wasn't even a thought at that point in time.
I've been personally involved in a metatag lawsuit, and if the metatag is a legal description of a website or if its a relative descriptor. This type of lawsuit is one of the basis for people being able to use trademarked terms on a site that is informative and not comercial.
I'm still waiting for a good lawsuit about advertising a trademarked term for an informative, noncomercial site, to see which side wins that one, as it would redefine a lot of the trademarked advertising.
Overall in my previous post, I was more referring to, on AdWords, and how it seems it's the responsiblilty of the party being infringed upon to ask G to stop the advertising, and not the responsibility of the advertising party to find out if the terms are trademarked in the first place.
In the french lawsuit G is facing, I believe G is the only defendent (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this one), but the parties that advertised the trademarked terms are not named as defendants in the case. So the burden is on Google who is displaying the trademarked terms, not the companies that are paying G to display those trademarked terms. If the companies were also named, then it would shift some of the burden from Google to the advertisers who would then be held liable for their advertising practices.
As someone who worked / works for corporations I am interested to see the other point of view he shows.
Yes I agree with your thinking that punitive attack is not at the moment on the agenda at least publicly.
There are a few cases which have been solved out of the limelight, a camera maker at the moment using all sorts of gagging agreements when dealing with warranty claims to counter the ability of the internet to spread bad news and a furniture manufacturer who was able to remove a site critical of its business methods. In neither of these cases do I know enough details at the moment to really comment.
I have had to deal with competitor metatags containing misleading trademarks, their buying and holding or using misleading domains and competitors using adwords to target my clients trademark etc.
In some cases there are legal precedents from a few cases here in the UK which can suggest they would not get away with it if it came to court so they have not been hard to resolve.
What also interests me is the precedent set in print advertising where competitor trademarks and or company names have been used in direct comparitive adverts, I think these sorts of uses would for that reason stand up on the internet but to my knowledge no one seems to use this as an agressive tactic, they leave it to review and shopping sites who are much more subtle.
UK examples include the campaigns Amstrad used to run some time ago directly comparing their PC with a branded competitor and listing the price of each. Simple and very bold campaigns these were.
I dont know what their legal advice bill was however but I expect its more than mine :-)
In parts of the U.S., you'll hear a waitress ask "what kind of coke do you want", at a place that only sells pepsi products. Coke is often used as a generic name.
Print advertising laws where you compare products could probably be used in banner advertising where the ad is served no matter what the end user is viewing. However, in search (at least for U.S laws), it's assumed you're looking for that specific product if you search for a trademarked term, and not for the generic product.
The only exception to this that I can think of has come from the WhenU lawsuits (which is software that also serves popups when you visit certain sites), and WhenU won the lawsuit because the person installed the software willingly, thus the popups were wanted even though they would show competitor ads when you visited a particular sites.
I think the next lawsuit we'll see is related to a few products that serve popups when you type certain keywords into any large search engine. At present, you can have a pop up served for any search for a trademarked term.
As long as goverments allow people to randomly trademark anything ("summer of love" and "x" come to mind) we'll continue to see a lot of trademark laws continue to develop.
