AdCenter Editorial Guidlines

AdCenter allows clear tradmark violations

[JonW]

About four weeks ago I contacted AdCenter support because of an ad that was using a display url a very large and well known company when in fact they have no association with that company at all.

AdCenters' first response was to direct me to the MSN Search tradmark violation page which requires sending trademark documentation and can only be filed by the trademark owner.

I responded that it was not a MSN Search problem, but and AdCenter problem since the ad is in serious violation the ad editorial guidlines.

Now three weeks later the ad continues to display (BTW the keyword is in the top 1000 keywords list).

Shouldn't AdCenter remove the ad once they have been informed? Are they really going to make me contact the company whose URL is being used to have the ad removed?

[BlackTulip]

have you registered your company's trademark?

[JonW]

Yeah that was basically AdCenters first response when I complained.

I don't have any association (other than as a customer) with the company whose trademarked URL is being used.

[breny]

How do you know the person running the ad has no association with the trademark owner? Does clicking the ad send you to the trademark owner's site or the site of the person running the ad?

[BlackTulip]

I don't have any association

i am sorry you lost me there.

[JonW]

The ads actual URL goes to a completely different site. There is no contact information on the site and the domain registration uses third party "privacy" protection. Major corporations typically don't try to hide their true identities.

I'm sure that lots of advertisers have tried to get away with a lot of things on AdCenter and the Google and Yahoo conterparts. The point is that I informed Adcenter about an ad with serious violations of their own editorial guidlines and they refuse to remove the ad.

[breny]

I think you got waylaid on the trademark issue. I definitely would consider this more of a violation of editorial guidelines and should be reported as such. If you've reported it, that's pretty much all your can do.