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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."
The last appeal (better described in an alternate story ) was overturned because all of the words involved were dictionary words, and that it was unrealistic to expect a trademark search for every AdWords sale.
However, there is no doubt that AXA isn't found in most dictionaries, certainly not English or French - so it would seem they actually have a good chance of loosing this lawsuit.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Why can't they just sue the company who's purchasing the ad, instead of suing Google?
Even in sue happy America this case would be dismissed. It's like suing a library because I went to look for say McDonalds and found that Burger King also sells hamburgers. McDonalds is mad wanting to bundle library with a default configuration whereby McDonald's information is installed in the library and cannot be removed once installed nor can it be collocated with other Hamburger joints. Now that McDonalds has the market captured it can now be the dominate player in the hamburger field (reminiscent of a browser pun everyone). So now that McDonalds has the default configuration of libraries setup, McDonalds can now expand to, say, French Fires - you now must eat vegetable fried fries with fake beef flavoring. Did this court also award any damages from Amazons one click shopping scheme? This is crazy I'll stop now...
I think the lawyers responsible for such litigation should be required by the judge to supply (for free to the public) a list of every trademarked word... and keep it updated in perpetuity, oh.. and have their fingernails pulled off for being such a pest.
meh
"Freedom" court. Please use the language that our lofty senators appointed for us.
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.
Nothing good can come of this sort of lawsuit. Google and other search engines should be free to have their results the way the Internet says.
The Scientology nuts are complaining that a search for "scientology" also results in anti-scientology sites. Should they be awarded damages too?
I don't think so.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
They said that Google is diluting the copyright because customers might mistaken the adverstised services as being associated with AXA. (Yes, it's in an ad box and labeled as such, but that makes sense and has no place in the law.) People have sued pop-ups on the same grounds; an ad that popped up upon a visit to a website might seem connected to that website even though it is not. Therefore, this claim is not stupid outright but in this case it seems a little weak.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/24/202821 6&mode=thread
:)
"If this claim is successful, this could be quite a setback for Microsoft's business model."
Nice consistent unbiased reporting there, guys.
"Search engine company Google is suing themselves"
"If you Google on 'A9', you get a listing for one of our competitors," said a company spokesperson. "It's an outrage!"
when i go through the big phat yellow pages directory, looking for the "Blud E. Good Plumbing" phone number, i am subjected to other adverts of rival plumbing services. The Yellow pages are profiting from this, so why shouldn't google?
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.
People who bought this book also bought....
Isn't it perfectly legal to say that you don't want to do business with someone because of moral/other objections?
What happens if google just removed any and all references to AXA on the web?
They could damage any global corp, and destroy any web business that wasn't already a name (amazon).
This is their scary power, scary power indeed.
In the forced localized version of Google here in Australia, all I see is a) AXA official web sites b) An ad for a local mortgage firm. No compeditors. Obviously the validility of this lawsuit varies from country to country.
In the interests of full disclosure: I am an AXA Australia shareholder.
...and on the sponsored ads, every one of them had 'AXA' in the title, but didn't seem to be related to the company itself. Are sponsored links different from regular links in that the companies give Google the title that'll show up? It seems like the only way to actually solve this may be to force Google to check for trademarks in titles, but that is a LOT of work, and probably is only feasible if a company assertively places its name in "the list."
If google loses in court they should refuse to index AXA _at all
Why wait until they lose? yank their cord now and give them a sense of reality.
Who says google has to list anybody?
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Let's take a step back for just a second. Std Disclaimer: IANAL, but I play one on /.
If "AXA" wins, this means that using its name is forbidden, unless the company gives its approval beforehand. This imposes an undue restriction on freedom of speech, since Google is certainly not the only forum in which AXA is discussed and/or searched. Will this company sue, let's say, every newspapers or forums that discuss insurance companies and/or policies? Unlikely.
A few years ago, AXA may have argue its case by saying that it was 'undue competition', since France had laws prohibiting comparative commercials (Product A is better than product B because of...). But this is not the case anymore and comparative commercials are now legal in France.
Google may also argue that AdWords do not 'target' AXA, since -- AFAIK -- they are generated automatically. AXA is an insurance company (this is public knowledge). Therefore, a Google search on, say 'life insurance' would return pretty much the same AdWords results.
Therefore, I think AXA does not have a case. I also believe they know it, but that some over-zealous jerk in its Legal Dept decided to press the case anyway, just to make a point. They are just throwing good money out the window.
This may seem surprising, but French courts have proven in the past to be remarkably reasonable when it came to the Internet (Yahoo! 'nazi' case aside) and the previous decision is a case in point, since AXA lost it.
I fully expect Google to fight this all the way to the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation), if need be. And I expect them to win.
Just my 0.02 Euros...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
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
A better analogy is that you opened the phone book's white pages to look up McDonald's, and saw a Burger King ad right next to the McDonald's listing.
I've RTFA but frankly, there's not much information in there. Still, I guess that the reason why Axa sued is that the ad links mentioned the brand name "AXA". So maybe the proper analogy would be that you opened the white pages to look for McDonald's and see an ad for "McDonald's something" with the address and phone# of a BK.
Still not sure that this would justify a lawsuit but at least it's not that clear-cut.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
I don't see any problem. The Google search engine is doing exactly as it should - it is finding matching/close references within its website database. It just makes sense that the engine will find competitors/similar sites. A lawsuit over a service that is performing as it should should be dismissed immediately (with a warning to the industry not to try this stunt again).
Here in part of the United States, there is a store called Meijer. Its kind of a huge Wal-Mart with a food section for those that arent familiar. At any rate, when you check out, your cash register reciept is always accompanied by a coupon "strip" with coupons for a good number of the competitors of the items you JUST bought. For instance, if I go to Meijer and buy Armor hot dogs, im likely to get a coupon when checking out for Oscar Mayer hot dogs. Buy Heinz mustard and youre likely to get a coupon for French's when you check out. Its like that for everything from toothpaste to baked beans. These competitors buy these ads from Meijer as I understand it with specific instructions as to when customer buy product A, give them my coupon. In 10 years of shopping there, ive never gotten a coupon for a product I just bought, its always a competitor. Its not only the Googles and Yellow Pages of the world doing things like this.
The Scrabble dictionary is a sub-set of the Merriam-Webster dictionary - which doesn't list axa as a word.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Open up the yellow page phone book you have next to your phone. Look up any topic like "lawyers" and you'll find not one lawyer but a whole gaggle. Now AXA would have you believe this is wrong. When you open up the phone book looking around for something and you stumble across AXA it should be the only available financial institution? Is this what AXA really believes?
Why are companies afraid of competition? Because it makes them work a little bit harder? Shesh. Instead of suing Google who about count this as a blessing (aka free advertising) and get your marketing people to figure out away to capture the attention of people who when given a choice would want to choose AXA?
Lawyers don't sue people.
People sue people.
I'm fed up with companies trying to assert things that vaguely might belong to them. IMO you don't have rights to people not using your name. I've seen plenty of comparison adverts in the UK for cars, and that's perfectly legal.
What's their big problem anyway? I search for Axa because I want Axa and get some results for someone else? Well, maybe the "someone else" does it better and I might discover that? That, is what we in the free world call competition. If not, I'll find the site PDQ.
For litigious bastards, displacing the previous litigious bastards who will henceforth be known simply as bastards.
What incentive does Google have to produce "accurate" results? Merely financial. The fact that google produces what's considered to be dependable search results given some search terms seems totally irrelevant. Google is beholden only to its investors (and it's still privately held, so the list probably isn't enormous). Google's ranking algorithm(s) are susceptible to abuse, and perhaps a competitor of AXA has done just so. But I wouldn't care if Google intentionally produced AXA's competitors as results for searches on "AXA". What right has anyone to demand that Google produce more accurate results (presumes that searching for "AXA" means that AXA's website is the desired result)?
" Why can't they just sue the company who's purchasing the ad, instead of suing Google?"
1) Google has more money.
2) Google is an easy target.
3) Suing Google garners more publicity.
Your question makes the assumption that litigants/claiments are being wholly reasonable in their intent to have their grievances redressed and dont mereley want payola, regardless of the damadge it does to the information industry.
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
It is simply amazing how 'nitpicky' people can really get. Sueing Google over a search result. They should be happy that they are at least first on the list. If you search on msn.com, they are 13th, with their competitors listed first. Of course Yahoo and Lycos list them like google does, first on the list, while Excite has them at #6.
Are the folks at Axa planning on filing suit against these other search engines as well? I think google gave them an excellent spot at the top of their search food chain for the criteria.
I certainly hope the folks at Google read this and use the other search engine results in their defense.
Regards,
Jeff Kirkland
Looks like Google dropped the ads in American Samoa.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
::Sigh:: This is why it should be legal to own a real BFG.
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.
Ironically, Google may be in trouble because their search engine is too good. In another search engine, if you search for "AXA" you expect to get a bunch of useless sites. When you search in Google, you expect to get useful information. Therefore if someone does a search for AXA in Google, they fully expect that their results are related to AXA. If Google searches were bad, then there would be no confusion because users would expect to get irrelevant results, and there wouldn't be much of a case.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Search engine is like an automated yellow page book but lot bigger. This would be like pepsi taking an advertisement out on the listing of coke in yellowpages. Its not a trademark violation. When someone asks you were a mcdonalds is, and you say there's burger king down the street, are you committing a trademark violation?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Perhaps this will help:
"If your use of lose and loose is loose you lose."
I'm not a lawyer.
... I don't see why so many people get copyright and trademarks mixed up, or think they are the same thing.
... not one that I would agree with AXA's suing about anyway.
> Its not a dilution of copyright.
There is no such thing as "dilution of copyright"
What is hard for you to understand about the fact that it is illegal to use another companies' trademarked name to sell your own goods?
The Google Adword links had "AXA" as the title! That is the problem. If they were "Bob's Financial Services" there wouldn't be a problem I'm sure
We surrender! We drop all our lawsuits, please relist us!
"Direct" and "Assurance" can both be found in a dictionary, and therefore should both be available to anybody who wants to pay a search engine for them (I'm not disagreeing with you here)
pretty soon we won't be able to use any words or combinations of letters at all, because they're trademarked... schools will have to stop making us write research papers because we'll be comparing competing companies...
oh no! we'll actually have to compete with somebody... but I wanted my monopoly :cry:
IIRC, Google's ToS states that they have a right to remove any listing that intentionally skews the search listing. How can you skew them any more than suing the company to change them?
I'm all for it; blacklist the term axa from google and their domain. Let's see how long they stay in business when their competitors are the only ones showing up on the internet.
"Direct" and "Assurance" can both be found in a dictionary, and therefore should both be available to anybody who wants to pay a search engine for them (I'm not disagreeing with you here)
:cry
That is a ridiculous comment. You might as well say the letters A and X are taught in many primary schools therefore they should be available to anyone who wants to pay a search engine for them.
oh no! we'll actually have to compete with somebody... but I wanted my monopoly
Yes, see how worked up the Slashbots get about trivial issues, but it's a different question when another organization does it.
It's reasonable to assume that use of the words "direct assurance" would be naturally constructed by anyone who sells an assurance product directly to customers (as opposed to exclusively over broker networks). This is conterpointed to a famous US trademark, "Built Ford Tough". Here it's not reasonable to assume Chevrolet would naturally contruct this phrase about their automobiles.
My original assertion (first post) - I think they have a good chance of losing because of the term AXA, not because of the term, 'Direct Assurance'.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.