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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?
"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.
It's like suing a library because I went to look for say McDonalds and found that Burger King also sells hamburgers.
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.
In the Yellow Pages, a commercial directory, you clearly expect to find businesses advertised by category. In the White Pages, customers are listed by name instead. AXA is trying to say that Google should limit itself to being a white pages index of the web, which is rubbish.
What's your damage, Heather?
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/
"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....
That's exactly what the "yellow pages" are for. And AdWords is a lot like the yellow pages in that they show you businesses related to what you're searching for.
AXA should be suing their competitor, not Google. What their competitor did is tantamount to hanging an advertisement for their business under AXA's streetside sign.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
...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.
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.