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.