Not only do we appear to have dropped considerably in G's index (by 10's of pages), this parasite is now advertising against us on Adwords.
We wrote to him yesterday and asked him to change the pages (yet again)... today he's increased his cpc to depose us from the #1 positon. Although we have now commenced legal proceedings against him, the Adwords team tell us they cannot do anything about this.
I know that we can get his urls removed from G's index when successful in suing him but his position on Adwords is without doubt affecting the credibility of both our sites.
I called the guy today to point this out and he put the phone down.
We spent more than $250K on Adwords last year yet apparently they can do nothing to help.
Surely not?
ncw164x
I'll post again in a bit. :)
AWA
Please AWA let us know what is going on
Please follow the link below for information regarding steps that Google can take under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Although this document does not specifically mention ad text, I am reasonably sure that it can be covered as well.
Therefore, having read the doc, if you decide to file a 'notice of infringement' with us, please be sure to included details regarding the advertising side of thing - i.e., at the minimum, the complete ad text(s) in question, including the Display URL(s).
Please see here: [google.com...]
There is also a fax number to which you may send your information, which is not included in the document. I'll be happy to post this fax number, if given the OK by a mod. MODS?.
I hope this helps, The Grizzler, and best of luck.
AWA
I wonder what role web hosting companies can have in detecting and stopping such blatant copyright infringement and intellectual property crimes.
Please AWA let us know what is going on
donpps, I'm sorry to say that this is not really a topic about which I can speak with any authority at all. And when that's the case, I usually think it best to say as little as possible.
Less chance of being horribly wrong that way! ;)
I'm betting that a few expertly worded searches on Google or Google News would get you good current info, though. :)
(Uh Oh, was that self promotion?!)
AWA
If the mods don't let you post the fax number please sticky mail me if possible.
I've read quite a bit on WW forums about copyright infringement and their is much useful information out there, so thanks all.
donpps - We telephoned his hosting company yesterday and they were very dismissive of the whole issue. We were told our fax would be passed to their solicitors. They were not interested.
I would love to post their url so all of you out there that work very hard could avoid doing business with them.
The problem with this is that we do that badly in G at the moment that it's going to be difficult to supply enough information. We have dropped out of the rankings altogether for some keywords. Not a problem on Yahoo, MSN or Jeeves. We do very well on all keywords. (The other guy is directly below us on nearly all serps.)
Our main concern with G is Adwords and the fact that it may no longer be a cost effective medium for us whilst this guy is allowed to continue his campaigns. The Adwords team told us that they have no policy in place to deal with this unless the actual text of the Ad breaches our copyright, which it does not.
It seems that copyright issues are extremely prevolent at the moment so should Adwords have a stricter policy on this? At the end of the day I am certain that we will stop this guy some time soon but what happens when the next parasite comes along?
Something must be done.
Is the DMCA relevant here?
Since this seems to be so prevalent, and financially supported by google, it is tempting to think that it's smart business to do that yourself...
SN
I have just been reading the following article:
[chillingeffects.org...]
In particular have a look at the Contributory Infringement section. I think that G Adwords falls into this category.
We made them aware of this problem yesterday. I will be speaking to them again on Monday morning and pointing out their responsibilities.
The DMCA - is US law - so you can definitely force a US hosted site to comply.
If he switches web hosting to Russia, or China or some other country with less than sterling enforcement of IP - you are pretty much SOL - however, it is my understanding that you can force the domain name registrar to take action if the host and/or company is non-US - assuming that they aren't using a non-foreign TLD domain name.
based on my very limited understanding of US law as it applies to this type of situation.
cline - did your friend take issue with Adwords or directly with G?
Having read all the info posted I would imagine that as I notified Adwords on Thursday (and was told they could do nothing) Google are now not covered by the "Safe Harbor Provisions" of the DMCA and neither are his hosting company.
AWA - That fax number would be timely...
Have just sent a long fax to both Google HQ in CA and their European HQ in Dublin.
Will let you know what happens...
The client had sent communications to the copyright infringer before, that were ignored. This got their attention. They've removed from their inventory all products infringing on my client's copyright.
Our main priority is Adwords at the moment as our pages have plummetted in G's index since this guy duplicated them.
Interestingly if you search on Yahoo you find that most of his pages are directly below ours. We have many high ranking keywords on Yahoo so this guy is enjoying this free source of traffic too.
I haven't heard back from G yet and the guy is still advertising on Adwords so I will presume that it will be Monday at the earliest before we get any action.
His hosting company has not replied to their correspondence yet and I don't think they will. I am going to discuss the possibility of taking action against them with our solicitor on Monday. I would imagine they are now acting illegally also.
Wheel - Our solicitor is a specialist in copyright matters (particularly on the net) so we will ask about what can be done via the network. As the other guy's site is on a US server I would imagine the network too have responsibilities under the DMCA.
As we notified G Adwords by telephone on Thursday of this, I wonder if they too are breaching the DMCA?
Get him out of the SERPs and that will hurt him more than the solicitor letters, which he can ignore for a little while and try and get some revenue in the meantime.
Google (organic) acts very quickly. AdSense may ignore your complaint other than sending a form reply, as was my experience last year. Their rules are tighter now, so who knows.
Looks like we will have a busy few days ahead of us. This guy is going to be sorry he didn't take his pages down when he had the chance.
In light of the fact that he's actually increased his campaigns on Google Adwords after we sent our last two emails should perhaps seal his fate.
Anyone know if we can do anything via nominet either before or after we sue him?
We spoke to Google Adwords yesterday and were advised to send an email to adwords support in CA. We've just received what looks like a standard reply to complaints about trademark issues.
HELLO...WE HAVE A COPYRIGHT ISSUE!
Our issue is that Google is promoting a site that has copied ours.
As stated earlier we spent over $250K on Adwords last year and we get a "copied and pasted" reply that is completely off topic...
Nice.
This is your business - not a hobby - and it may come down to a law suit in federal court to protect you from this kind of low-life activity. As is, your competitor could very well be costing you a fortune with nothing preventing him, legally, from doing so.
Google have had a Notice of Infrigement fax and so have Google Adwords. We have wrote to both help and abuse email addresses at Google also sent one to Google Adwords too.
Interestingly we had a reply stating that thanked us for our "Trademark Infringement" enquiry. Obviously a cut and paste response.
I really thought that Google was hot on this sort of thing.
Meantime this joker is still displaying our work and advertising it on Google too!
The other advantage to filing DMCA complaints is that you have added proof, if/when the issue needs to go to court. Though some respond considerably faster than others - it's always nice to have a 'third-party' agreeing with your claim.
We made enquiries last year about having our campaigns managed by a rep and were told that we could have one but we decided against this ultimately.
At the time we were having difficulties getting a response from Adwords London. Then they moved to Dublin. We were told that we would get a dedicated voice to speak to but this doesn't appear to have happened.
To say we are disappointed is an understatement.
