GEICO vs Google Ads: Google Wins

abertoll writes "A federal judge decided that Google is able to sell ads under the GEICO trademark, claiming that this is fair use of the trademark. GEICO's contention was that competing insurance companies were using the name GEICO under which to buy Google Ads, so that when someone searches for GEICO, their ad would come up."

Comments

How does this case come out against Yahoo!?

[Grotius]

I wonder how this case would have come out against Yahoo! where the paid advertisers' ads appear at the beginning of the search results (albeit with "sponsor results" faintly printed above). The court could have found that it gives consumers more of an impression that Geico was somehow involved in those sites which could cause consumer confusion. Google is a harder search engine for Geico to take on because Google puts its advertisers links on the side of the results so it is clear to people that they are paid advertiser links.

Nevertheless, it seems like the right result to me. It is difficult to imagine there is any consumer confusion when using a web search engine like Google. You enter any word, even a brand name, and you expect there to be at least a few hundred totally irrelevant results. In Google's case, you expect there to be irrelevant results including insurance companies unrelated to Geico.

Does this mean that it's okay for everyone?

[Neil Blender]

Our company got a cease and desist from Google for using another company's name in our keywords.

Re:Does this mean that it's okay for everyone?

[Scrameustache]

using another company's name in our keywords

Spamming search results is not the same thing as having an ad next to the search results.

...if that is what you meant by "in our keywords", I'm not entirerly sure what you meant exactly.

Re:Does this mean that it's okay for everyone?

[Epistax]

Sorry I misread. I thought you meant you used your competitor's name as a keyword for your actual search result, not for a paid advertisement.

However I think the google stance still makes since from their point of view. The there are two ways they can stop people from using competitors as keywords. 1) filter before hand 2) yell a complaint is filed. If they do #2, which is the easy way, they might still get sued for allowing it in the first place, unless the courts say it's legit. Even if the courts say it's legit, google can say it's against their rules so will comply when someone complains.

I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but I think it makes sense from Google's prespective.

or googlegear...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about googlegear.com? They were forced to change names to zipzoomfly. How does that fit into all of this?

Re:or googlegear...

[Changa_MC]

but googlegear.com sounds like a subdivision of google, where betterthangoogle.com does not.

All Gone

[Zegnar]

Although it seems that 'at time of going to print' Google have removed all ads from a search for 'GEICO'. How nice of them :/

Re:Better Stick

[Scarblac]

Moreoever it's quite widely recognized that companies are allowed to use/refer/compare other competitors under the terms of fair use, how else are companies going to mention competitors' products without infringing a TM?

I wonder if there's going to be a repeat of this sort of law suit in some other country. After all, Google is an international business, and for instance in the Netherlands it is not allowed to mention competitor's products in advertising.

I'm a little unsure why they sued google

[Clockwurk]

I think this was a good decision by the judge, it frees google of having to research trademarked keywords and yet it still keeps the door open for companies like Geico to sue companies that abuse their trademark.

Re:Better Stick

[rokzy]

good point.

if domain squattig is bad, why not trademark squatting?

if there's one thing that's more annoying than the whole patent/trademark/copyright mess, it's the sleazy companies that try peddling their 2nd rate rip-offs on the back of confusion. c.f. "buy g3n3ric v1a.g.ara.!!!!!"

My business also targets competitor keywords

[Goldenhawk]

My small business has a product we advertise using both Google Adwords and Overture... very useful methods of advertising. I've found one of my most productive ad buys is using my primary competitor's product name as a search term. And I'm absolutely certain I'm not the only one doing this, and frankly I don't feel the slightest bit bad about it. Customers looking for a product are often looking for a class of products, not the specific product, and simply only know one particular brand name to search. (How many people are looking for copiers in general when they type "xerox"?)

After all, it wasn't too long ago that it was ruled okay to refer to your competition in an advertisement (like Coke mentioning Pepsi, etc.), so this is just another example of the same thing.

Also, even in the non-targeted (non-paid) results, you'll often find multiple competing products, simply by virtue of similar characteristics and reviews of multiple products on a given page.

Re:One thing to keep in mind....

[nutshell42]

Yeah great perhaps we can even replace the Evil Microsoft Empire with the equally evil google empire.

Now write 100 times "google is a corporation now"

Btw am I the only one disillusioned that google seems to concentrate on flashy new services (kitchensink.google.com) and less on improving their search algorithm. I know that the growth of the web makes it more and more difficult but google fails to provide even simple things like a possibility to filter out blogs or removing the most blatant dialer pages (you can't tell me that it's not possible to realize that page that has a whole dictionary in its meta tags and is linked to by thousands of other identical sites isn't fishy)

Geico is cheap

[Aggrazel]

When the lawsuit story broke, just for fun I added "geico" to my list of adwords. I put it on as 0.05 per click.

Guess what, even then my ad was placing 2nd or 3rd on the list, for a nickel!

If Geico is so bent up about people searching their name finding other competitors, why don't they just pay for some ads on their name themselves. Its not like it costs a mint, and they are rich bastards.

Re:Hypocrisy?

[RobertB-DC]

f I search for a specific brand, all the other brands saying "me too" piss me off. when searching for an official accessory, I don't want to see the million third-party companies selling shoddy rip-offs.

Then Google AdWords is doing you a huge favor! If you enter "Geico", and you see an ad for "AAA Fly-By-Night Auto Insurance & V1a6ra Outlet", you know that they think it's appropriate to buy Geico's name. As an informed consumer, you can then make an informed choice.

Another example: I just did a Google search on "Amazon". The AdWords bar gave me two Amazon affiliates and some outfit called "superelectronics.com". I now know that "superelectronics.com" (or "freesuperelectronics.com", which is where the redirect actually points) should be avoided.

Of course, there are always those people out there who think a little blue pill in their car insurance bill is a Good Thing...