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France: No Google Text Ads For Trademarked Words

Posted by timothy on from the word-police-regroup dept.

ASN writes "Reuters reports that a French court barred Google from providing text ads with search results for trademarked terms, except those from the trademark owner (in this case, 'Bourse des vols,' potentially -- 'Microsoft,' 'Scientology' even 'Linux'). According to Reuters, 'If it was upheld on appeal and validated in other countries the decision could force the search services to pre-screen search terms for trademarks before letting advertisers use them.' Google was fined 75,000 euros for the practice, and would have to pay 1,500 euro for each further infraction while appeal is underway (which makes one wonder if Google is paying for this)."

12 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. Insanity! by RickHunter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Trademarks? WHAT trademarks? This is ludicrous. If someone types in Ford, how is Google supposed to know if they're searching for Ford Motors, Gerald Ford, or informating on fording rivers? If I type in Windows, do they have to screen all ads not by Microsoft - even those for window cleaners?

    Insanity. Trademark laws were a good idea, but they're now even more insane than copyright laws. The courts seem to have forgotten that trademarks have a limited scope based on area of business and geographical area.

    1. Re:Insanity! by sql*kitten · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If someone types in Ford, how is Google supposed to know if they're searching for Ford Motors, Gerald Ford, or informating on fording rivers

      Well, that's the French government for you - they're always passing laws regulating business without thinking through the consequences. For example, they thought limiting the work week to 35 hours would force more jobs to be created. And it would - if all workers were interchangeable. Unfortunately, in the real would (which no French government official has ever worked in) they're not. Or the laws that make it very difficult to fire a worker - they thought that would cut unemployment too. Only they didn't realize that part of the risk of hiring a worker is that he is incompetent or lazy - by making it so difficult to fire, they magnified that risk, and so companies were reluctant to hire!

      Basically, until the French government keeps its bungling hands out of regulating things it doesn't understand, French unemployment will never drop into the single digits, and their economy will never pull out of recession.

  2. Screw them. by grub · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Google should dump Google.fr and continue doing what they're doing. That'll leave the French courts with no one to sue nationally and will be another nail in the coffin for French xenophobia.

    --
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  3. "A, an, the?" by NineNine · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So then what's left to Google, if not copyrighted words? That's insane.

  4. Which Trademark Owner? by rmohr02 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A trademark is an exclusive right to use a name, phrase or logo with regards to a specific market. It is not entirely impossible for two different companies to have the same trademark--remember the nissan.com debacle? The original owner of the nissan.com site (not the car manufacturer) had a trademark on the name "Nissan" and got there first. Another (more prominent) company with a trademark on "Nissan" sued to get the domain and won. However, the original owner still runs a business with the name "Nissan".

    1. Re:Which Trademark Owner? by Decius6i5 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      A trademark is an exclusive right to use a name, phrase or logo with regards to a specific market. It is not entirely impossible for two different companies to have the same trademark?
      The answer is ANY trademark owner. For example, companies selling Ford automobiles, companies selling biographies of Gerald Ford, and companies such as "Ford Brand Baked Beans" would be able to buy ads on Google's "Ford" search results. However, any company that competes with a company with a trademark on "Ford" would not be allowed to place an ad on said search results. For example, companies selling Chevrolets, or "Big Jimmy's Baked Beans."

      As for the Nissan case, domain names are more difficult to handle because only one company can get them. There is a belief in the legal system that a company (say Pepsi) can get so well known that it really isn't possible for someone to run a non-competing business in another market without confusing customers. You can't make Pepsi brand computers because people will assume that you are the same company that makes the cola, and their opinion of your computers might reflect poorly on their opinion of Pepsi's cola products. The details of the Nissan case are complex. Some details from the perspective of the defendant are here:

      http://www.ncchelp.org/

  5. Did you read the article before yelling insult ? by aepervius · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First a trademark has to be actively defended or you loose it. So the firm holding the trademark "bourse des vols" defended it being used by competitor. Just like any US yahoo firm would have defended their term used by competitor in anadvertising with "ford" in it for example.

    Second what is with all this xenophobic spout I see thrown at the french ? First and formore US judge and politics are as able to make BIIIG way mistake as french one (COPA, DMCA, Patriot act and I pass many other there).

    Second if you really do not wish to have any relationship with french , then buy ntohing from them, sell them nothing, do not even speak on them, ignroe them completly. Throwing xenophobic insult at them only show how "petty" and "arrogant" you are. Do really US peopel feel so insucre that they have to throw insult each possible moment at european in general and french in particular ? Tolerance serems a vain word in some people mouth [or writing].



    So Please hold off the insult and discuss whether the trademark law are bad or not, or whether the judge really outstepped its power. Remmember, he did not judge whether internet was an althogether different medium, he did judge it as it was one of the old break and mortar medium [paper], and in France you DO NOT HAVE the right to use your competitor trade mark. (or at least so I remmember. This is why we do not have comparative publicity olike in US/UK).

    --
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  6. This is about AdWords, not search results by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This isn't about Google's search results. This is about AdWords, which is specifically advertising.

    France regulates advertising quite differently from other expression. TV commercials require advance approval. Sexy ads are fine. (Although, since 2001, sexual domination and violence in ads has been restricted.) But there are many other restrictions. If an advertiser claims their product is "better", they have to be able to prove it in court or face criminal penalties. Here's the official FAQ on advertising in France.

    Under US law, AdWords are clearly "commercial speech" when they lead to a product, The FTC could regulate them.

    Google can live with this; they just need to require AdWords purchasers to certify that they're not infringing a trademark.

  7. Re:Fortunately by arkanes · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interpertations of market categories can be very broad. For example, some companies (like Pepsi, or Coca-Cola) are considered so large and well known that ANY use of the phrase can be considered infringing.

  8. I have some sympathy for the ruling... by greppling · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...as I recently discoverd that when one googles for the free software project I am maintaining, one gets a sponsored link for an equivalent commercial program. Now, I don't earn anything anyway with my project, so I don't care so much, but still it feels a little odd.

  9. Sewing what they reap by froggle2003 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This might be down-modded by Google-fanboys, but it needs to be said: Google has had something like this coming.

    As a customer both of Google AdSense and Google AdWords, I have been victim of many of Google's own anti-competitive and censorship policies.

    First, if your webpage contains keywords like "war" or "suicide" (as any news page will sometimes) Google will not serve your site paying ads but will serve you Public Service Announcements (PSAs) about saving Gorillas and stuff like that. By Google's own criterion, they wouldn't sponsor news.google.com or the NY Times, except, well, they do. If your money is big enough then it's kay; only smaller sights are oppressed. They have revoked supporting non-PSAs at the recently slashdotted News for Christians site Good Fig:

    http://www.goodfig.org

    They stopped mainly because Good Fig covers things like the Isreali-Palestinian situation (war), the COPA (the keyword "pornography"), a sex-abuse victim reconciliation study (the keyword "sex"), etc. There also is a story reported here that Google wouldn't allow Valley Firearms LLC or any other firearms retailer to advertise their firearms, while Google will advertise porn links that are only 2 clicks away from ultra-explicit material.

    Google wouldn't support paying ads for Slashdot unless Slashdot had big enough money (which they might), because Slashdot covers stories involving the keywords "sex", "pornography", etc., etc.

    Next, using Google AdWords I had a click-through-rate (CTR) of 0.6% with an average position of 4-5 while Google requires 0.5% for the top spot so I was doing fine---until Google ran my ad on "content focused" sites and got me a "content focused" CTR of 0.1% and are now trying to charge me a $5 "full-restore" fee for my "underperforming keywords/ads." One of the "content-focused" sites was Amazon.com and they ran my ad on a few book pages where you have to scroll way down and read the "You might also be interested in.." section. Like anyone will ever read that.

    So, Google's search page rules and they have some of the best and brightest technical minds working for them; however, when it comes to the money-people Google has hired to direct policy and manage how AdWords and AdSense work, they have some clear issues....

  10. Re:Insanity! Grocery Stores Also??? by lcsjk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My local grocery store (Kroger) includes an advertising discount coupon for a competitor when certain items are purchased. I am sure that in the USA, if it were to become illegal on the internet, a number of companies would have to stop the coupons for competitors. I wonder if this is also common practice in France and grocery stores or other businesses.