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AXA sues Google over AdWords
Da Fokka writes "Insurance company AXA is suing Google in a french court because a search for 'AXA' results in links to their competitors. A similar claim was initially awarded but successfully appealed by Google. If this claim is successful, this could be quite a setback for Google's business model."
Why can't they just sue the company who's purchasing the ad, instead of suing Google?
If search engines become responsible for the accuracy of their searches, then that's going to become risky business, especially when everyone's always just a little lower in the rankings than they'd like to be.
Worse for Google is that an insurance company is going to have lots of money and can easily afford to mount a very strong case against them. Hopefully, Google will have some luck, but it sounds like the similar case won't stand to help them much.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
I'm trying to figure out how a court can actually hold Google RESPONSIBLE for advertisement for a business entity.
Google's primary purpose is INFORMATION, not the aforementioned advertisement.
If I'm looking for something to purchase, I'm generally more concerned with price & availability than who I buy FROM. It's in this area that Google shines, offering a plethora of various places to buy/rent from.
I would think this is an excellent opportunity for Google to make the distinction between their ACTUAL business plan and their PERCIEVED business plan.
Think about it, just because you've coined some obscure acronym for yourself or your business, does that mean it's Google's responsibility to insure that people find you during their search? Wow, nice way to shrink that ad budget.
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
A quick search for 'Linux' brings up the following #1 sponsored link:
Linux News
Why is Windows cheaper than Linux?
Get all the facts Now!
www.microsoft.ca/getthefacts
So can Linus sue now? Seriously, I hope the courts don't rule against Google. It's not like the nasty ads that were being placed over other ads on company websites, it's just a sponsored link.
I think this was pretty standard practice at one point, to put your competitors names as triggers for your Adword advert. A competitor tried to do that to us, which we thought was a bit scummy but we didn't have the resources to do anything about it. Someone pointed us at Google's compaints procedure: we wrote to them, and after a long delay the offending advert was taken down. I found another article which implies that they will be reversing this policy and allowing you to bid on anybody's name and trademark, and take down adverts only where a particular jurisdiction makes it awkward for them (i.e. outside of US and Canada). This sucks of course but TBH I'm not sure said competitor would have got many hits from our name at the time. Now I suspect they might but this time we'd be able to do something about it :-)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
What is happening here is that a competitor is "buying" an advert imprint on Google when the word "axa" is in the search criteria. Its pretty much the same thing as a billboard saying "Get your Coca Cola here" with an arrow down to a Pepsi fridge, or a table with your home-made lemonade.
This is, in fact, exactly what trademark laws are meant to prevent: the abuse of your good name by competitors, detractors and freeloaders.
Trademarks are, in fact, magic words (or phrases) that can't be used in many ways without permission. You can talk about Pepsi, refer to Pepsi, satirize Pepsi, but you can't use the name Pepsi to advertise your business or product, or claim to be Pepsi-compliant or Pepsi-approved, or basically abuse the (presumably) good reputation of Pepsi to bring gain to yourself or harm to the trademark holder.
What is being described here is a despicable business practice, and does not deserve the hand of support its getting from Slashdot. Trademarks and branding are important tools for product differentiation in mature markets, which is why they are strongly protected in capatalist economies.
That said, the guilty parties here are those that register trademarks (to which they have no right) as AdWords; not Google. This court action is comparable to holding a newspaper responsible because an advertiser illegally used a trademark, or holding a supermarket responsible for the illegal use of a trademark on its community advertising board.
The correct solution is to apply existing laws to a "new" domain. Google should, on request from someone who can offer prima facae proof that they are the legal trademark holder, supply the full contact details of all parties who have either currently or previously registered AdWords for that trademark. The trademark holder can then go after the infringer(s) directly. It should not be possible to request or get an injunction to force Google to remove the AdWord, for the legal reasons given below.
Unfortunately many countries are applying their only flavours of national and international law to the problem. This becomes particularly complicated in the case of trademarks, which typically are national in extent (although many countries have specific policies for "global" or "well known" international brands), and are also limited to a single domain.
Thus a single country could have two registered trademarks "XYZ", one for a soft drink and another for a range of security doors. Another country could also have a trademark "XYZ" for a soft drink, that is in no way related to the "XYZ" of the first country. This happens frequently, and must be absolute hell for companies like Google.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Google posts paid advertising links (on the sides and above normal search results) always using a different background color, and specifically noting that those results are "sponsored links".
The fact that Google specifically separates sponsored links from it's normal search results is one of the reasons why Google has as high a popularity as it does.
About this lawsuit The AXA company is suing Google for selling both the trademarked term, "Direct Assurance" and the companies non-dictionary name, "AXA".
Google sold the non-dictionary term AXA to competitors of AXA. This has nothing to do with standard search results, and everything to do with advertising. If AXA were a dictionary word in English or French then there's a decent chance that Google would win the case (like the last case).
While I personally feel there is no validity to a lawsuit over selling a trademarked term made of 'dictionary' words, I see potential for liability where you are selling terms that are not otherwise found in the dictionary.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.