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

Better Stick

[fembots]

The ruling is fine, as long as other judges/courts are sticking to the same ruling in the future.

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?

The judge said that "as a matter of law it is not trademark infringement to use trademarks as keywords to trigger advertising".

Does that mean that it's okay to use "BesidesGoogle.com" or "BetterThanGoogle.com" for another online search engine service? Since it's only promoting fair competition as argued by Google. And domain name is simply a form of advertising keywords that people use to find a product.

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.

Re:Better Stick

[harvardian]

I went to a panel discussion on this topic, and one of the lawyers on the panel mentioned that Google has already incurred fines in France and Germany for this practice.

For example: this story

As a result of the ruling, searches under 'bourse de vols' will only generate search results linking to Mr Dariot's site. Google is looking to appeal the decision.

So as happy as we are about this ruling in the States, it looks like France isn't so keen on letting companies bid on their competitors' trademarks.

I don't know how this influences broad-match type scenarios, though. What happens if somebody searches for "(trademark term) cars", and a competitor buys "cars" rather than the trademarked term? This seems like it would be prohibitively difficult to stop.

One thing to keep in mind....

[wcitechnologies]

...is that google always wins. ALWAYS.

Google for president.

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.

Re:How does this case come out against Yahoo!?

[harvardian]

Overture is significantly more hands-on with ad copy and keyword selection than Google is. They routinely reject ads that might potentially violate copyright because they're "not relevant". For example, Overture probably won't let a competitor bid on the term "Geico" because "Geico" isn't relevant to an ad for "ACME Insurance" (or say they'll say). What they do explicitly allow is comparative advertising, where an ad explicitly identifies the company as a competitor and offers an alternative.

For example, if you search for "Geico" on Yahoo you see that the ad text says things like "instant quotes from insurance companies that compete with Geico." This is an example of comparative advertising that Overture allows.

Google, on the other hand, is much looser with what they'll allow in ads, to some degree because they have less human editor intervention and more algorithmic relevance scoring. Their business philosophy is more free marketplace/large volume oriented.

So this is one reason you'll see companies go after Google rather than Overture. They're lower-hanging fruit.

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.

save 15% or more

[Nitroshock]

Google Adwords, because 15 minutes could steal you 15% or more potential Geico customers. -Nitro

Already Someone Bandwagoning On This

[shawnmchorse]

The first sponsored link I saw with the Google search for "geico" was this:

It's Only Me, Dave Pell
I'm taking advantage of a popular
case instead of earning my traffic.

Cute. So cute I felt compelled to click on the ad once just because I knew he'd get billed for it by Google at the end of the month.

Re:Hypocrisy?

[rokzy]

if I search for car insurance, I expect ads from car insurance companies.

if 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.

ymmv.

Coincidence?

[mikeswi]

I wonder if it is a coincidence the six of the first eight google results for a search for Geico comes up with links to information about Geico's lawsuits?

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.

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.

Geico routinely sues

[cat_jesus]

Geico sends C&D's and sues people all the time over weird shit like this. Upper management seems to be pretty clueless about the internet. If you have a domain name with Geico in it, you will be contacted eventually and threatened.

It's funny though because they took the domain http://geicosucks.com from someone and decided to point that domain name to the same ip address as geico.com. So you can get a quote and everything from geicosucks.com. They could have done a simple redirect but their internet "expert" claims that they would have to get another $10K web server in order to do a redirect from geicosucks.com to geico.com

Of course the PHBs won't listen to anyone but the buttmunch who insists that they'd need a new server for a redirect. Funny how the useless and clueless IT people end up in managment.