Competitor threatening lawsuit over adwords

Our ad appears for their trademarked keyword

[mr2828]

Wasn't this settled with Geico last year? Apparently not as we found out today when a competitor sent us a nasty note threatening a lawsuit unless we permanently pull our ad. Our ad itself does not contain their trademark - it is the keyword itself only that they are whining about.

Any here dealt with this or know of how to get in touch with the legal department at Adwords? Send me a message.

Thanks

[justshelley]

Unless my client specifically asks me to bid on a competitors name or website (with the understanding that that competitor might be contacting them), I usually just incorporate the competitor's name into the search terms. For example: "brand-name red widgets". It's harder for your competitor to figure out if you are specifically bidding on their name combined with the search term or if you are just bidding on the broad or phrase version of "red widgets".

[mr2828]

Good tip, but too late to help here. Based on my reading the past couple of hours about the Adwords trademark policy, it looks like we'll have to cave in and stop advertising on this term and all terms including it, unless there is something I'm missing?

[bobothecat]

unless there is something I'm missing?

Ask a qualified attorney, and you'll certainly find out :)

[justshelley]

I'm sorry. Attorneys scare me (shiver). But even my Google rep. agreed with me on the safety of using the competitors name within the search term when you are combining it with other words. It's not fool-proof. Just harder to prove.

[MarkHutch]

I'm surprised they didn't take this up with Adwords, first. They may have and didn't get satisfaction so now they are going after you.

[mr2828]

Although this competitor is pretty large, they are complete morons when it comes to the internet. They likely don't even know about the Adwords trademark dispute policy or related procedure(s).

I'm going to advise my company to tell its lawyers that we will cave on this one specific term, but unless the competitor brings up the other iterations we bid on then we won't drop those.