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GEICO vs Google Ads: Google Wins

Posted by timothy on from the usaa-rules-anyhow dept.

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."

7 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Better Stick by fembots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
    1. Re:Better Stick by harvardian · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.
  2. One thing to keep in mind.... by wcitechnologies · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...is that google always wins. ALWAYS.


    Google for president.

    --
    Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
  3. How does this case come out against Yahoo!? by Grotius · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

  4. Does this mean that it's okay for everyone? by Neil+Blender · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

  5. Already Someone Bandwagoning On This by shawnmchorse · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Geico routinely sues by cat_jesus · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.