Google is making changes to their trademark policy to allow Adwords advertisers to bid on brand and trademark terms.
The rules allow keyword bidding for trademark terms but won’t allow advertisers to use the trademarked terms in the ad text.
The basic impact of this is that advertisers are going to be forced into PPC bidding wars if they want to maintain their place at the top of the sponsored results for brand related searches.
Good news however for any brands with sitelinks as they stand out enough to avoid using PPC.
Google has made a policy revision that applies to complaints we receive regarding trademarks in the UK and Ireland. For complaints received on or after Friday, April 4, 2008, we will no longer review a term corresponding to the trademarked term as a keyword trigger. However, we will continue to perform a limited courtesy investigation of complaints regarding ad text purported to be in violation of a trademark.
Beginning May 5, 2008, keywords that were disabled as a result of a trademark investigation will no longer be restricted in the UK and Ireland.
Here is what the new rules say:
When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we only investigate the use of the trademark in ad text. If the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademark and prevent them from using it in ad text in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow – big changes indeed! Thanks for the heads up
That’s really interesting.. thanks for sharing!
this is new in the UK now I guess.
We’ve been following this for a few years now in the US. I report people often for my company when they use our trademark names in their ads.
Question for anybody who can answer – I know that Google allows you to use trademarked terms as keywords, but how have the courts reacted? Can anyone give me a link or provide any information on relevant case law or court precedings involving suits for using trademarked terms as search terms?
Google states that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint. This would vary by jurisdiction. Remember Google was sued in France. And unscrupulous marketers will have a field day bidding on the trade marked terms of others? GD.
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