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French Court Orders Google to Stop Competing Ad Displays
charleste writes "NPR is reporting that a French court has ordered Google to stop displaying ads when users search for competitors (e.g. if you search for Louis Vuitton, no more ads for Dior). If this holds up, wouldn't this affect most business models for free web tools?" CNET also has details , and information about previous cases.
Google Ruled a Trademark Infringer
Is going to determine and keep track of which companies are competitors? How the hell is anyone supposed to do that for every single company in existence?
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
The whole point of the judgement is that Dior (or any other company) couldn't buy adwords on Google targetting the search term 'Louis Vutton' or vice versa. Nothing to do with web tools or other such nonsenese. RTFJ!
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
How would France have the jurisdiction to affect the way an American company operates?
So does that mean Amazon shouldn't be showing what other books people who searched for a certain one also bought? They might be costing a sale of the original book if the add shows a book with similar content they chose instead if it.
Till they figure out that someone typing 'Goodyear' won't be able to see a 'Michelin' ad....
Old News for nerds, stuff that mattered yesterday...
Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left?
Repeat!
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Unless the company submitting the ad is going to submit all the names (and variations on names) that may be competitiors this is unenforceable.
"The court ordered Google to stop displaying ads for competitors of Louis Vuitton" Don't worry, Google can still advertise competitors of other products.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Oddly enough, when I did a Google search for "French Riviera" I was offered ads for vacationing in Italy and Spain... touche!
Maybe google should just stop providing the service to the french.. or at least, modify the ad system for the country. I don't expect the ruling to go any farther then the country anyway.
They don't believe in Free Speech (can't sell anti-French WWII memorabilia), they don't believe in shaving for women (Mila Jovovich), and they don't believe in using perfectly good words (the requiring that all computer terms be translated into appropriate French words).
Who gives a damn what those cheese-eating surrender monkeys "order"?
Maybe one day they can join the rest of the civilized world in the post-Dark Ages for a change.
Both lawsuits have hinged on Google's signature keyword-advertising system, Adwords, which pairs text ads with related search results. For example, a Nike ad appears after a search for running shoes. Through the system, Google allows marketers to bid for such search-related keywords, including common branded and trademarked terms.
Louis Vuitton applauded the ruling, highlighting the danger that some sponsored search results tied to its name can promote counterfeits. "It was absolutely unthinkable that a company like Google be authorized, in the scope of its advertising business, to sell the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties, specifically to Web sites selling counterfeits," a company representative said in a statement via e-mail.
So Google was allowing other companies to bid on extremely vague search terms that display ads for companies related and somehow Vuitton thinks thats dangerous?
Give me a break. Make your product superior to the others and people will see the alternative and buy yours. I'm sorry if the "counterfeits" will end up beating you out. Maybe yours isn't worth 100x as much as theirs just because of your name.
Personally I don't even see the ads. They are there but they are in the corner of my eye. I have certainly never clicked on one and I don't know of anyone who has. Get over it.
French courts ruled against Yahoo!, and Yahoo! told them to shove it. The U.S. also gave Yahoo! the green light. It is quite ridiculous for the French to stifle competition. If people do not like it, they do not have to use Google. I do not hear many people, besides the French gov't. complaining. Do the French people, themselves, feel this way?
Politics, Life, and More on my Aspiring for the Future
What does French authority have over Google? What if Zimbabwe issued an order that Google do something? Or what about my grandmother? If Google doesn't comply, what authority does France have to sanction Google?
God spoke to me.
Why doesn't google create a special French version? LaGoogle anyone?
It appears I didn't completely understand the ruling.
I await the slap of the Mods.
It is still pretty idiotic, though. As a previous poster noted, how the heck is Google supposed to know who the competitors are? Is Google going to be held responsible for keeping track, or will they have to implement something new like a Blacklist for each ad?
This is moronic. Who's to say who's a competitor? Doesn't this invite all sorts of abuse by corporations who lack morals ( ie: all of them )?
*rubs temples*
I understand this is a "new" technology, and I appreciate how much catch up judges have to make effective rulings, but this indicates to me that they don't grasp how things work.
Maybe the court transcripts reveal more than the simple blurb. Perhaps there's simply more to this than the article suggests.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Reminds me of the Agora in Athens... Nikke, Abibas, Adiddas, etc...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Will it be illegal for M$ to push "how to migrate from linux to windows" in their sponsored results @ msn search?
Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat! [slashdot.org] -- Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself
That's a self-solving problem, actually... it's the PAID advertising that's the issue, I believe. For instance, one of my company's competitors pays to have their product show up if someone searches for our company name... if it were in fact illegal to buy search terms that included another company's trademarks, then WE would be the ones to report it...all the courts would have to do is respond to complaints - same way it works now.
Unfortunately, Google won a similar case in the US, so our competitors can continue this practice that I, at least, see as a bit unethical.
February 13, 2004
l e. shtml
Google bans ads that criticize cruise ships
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO - Online search engine leader Google has banned the ads of an environmental group protesting a major cruise line's sewage treatment methods, casting a spotlight on the editorial policies that control the popular Web site's lucrative marketing program.
Jim Ayers, Pacific Region director for Oceana, said from his Juneau home that he was shocked that Google would censor his group's ads based on corporate bias.
Washington D.C.-based Oceana said Google dropped the text-based ads displayed in shaded boxes along the right side of its Web page because they were critical of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
http://juneauempire.com/stories/021304/sta_goog
Does this mean that I won't get a million dollars for playing "Shoot the Monkey"?
Yeah! Lets all second the demonizing of an entire people. ... :P
Dear Lord: One of your creatures may be hurt tonight. Please let it be the other creature.
There's the one where France said you can't internationally auction NAZI memorobilia. And there's more about them going after other neo-Nazi websites. They went after their own ISPs in the 1990s. And then there's Toubon Law which dictates what materials MUST be written in French and what is allowed to be written in other languages.
Every country has their problems, but France's problem seems to be that they don't really understand that they're living in an international world (regardless of how much they might trumpet that belief to other countries). It's time for them to stop attempting to enforce silly standards on other countries, and start allowing their own people to communicate without interference with the outside world, in whatever manner (or language) they see fit.
PS. I know nothing about France.
--
RumorsDaily
While I am a major fan of all the amazing work Google has done and relesed for the web. I can't help feel that this ruling is correct. I understand that it could have serious impact on Google and their bottomline but it seems like its the right thing.
/.'ers do) you should have every expectation that the ads are associated with that brand. This is not the case when Google sells the ad to a competitor.
Trademarks are in place to protect the consumer. Not the trademark holder. They prevent some fly-by-night company from stamping their stuff with a brandname and selling it. Levi's jeans are a brandname and cheap knockoffs can not carry the Levi's name. This is a good thing for consumers.
In this case Google is selling the trademark to a competitor for ads. This does not serve the public well. If you search for Louis Vuiton (and I know
I disappointed that Google is getting the set back but I really think its justified.
Just like in Iraq, France is a paper tiger. They have no backbone to do anything about it.
:)
If I were Google, I'd ignor the French order. Just make sure if you are a Google employee, you don't vacation in Paris.
IANAL, but as far as I know, if a company does business in a country, they agree to be under the juristiction of that region's laws. Them being american does not render them immune. Like if you, with an american passport, were to walk into france and start assulting someone. Can you only be tried under american law?
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Is fine with me.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Once they've nailed search results for competitors, what about critical sites that warn that your new SUX 6000 SUV has C4 in the airbags, or that Louis Vuitton is a poo?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I think ranking search results by who pays more to google is a poor idea, but there is no reason that google should not be able to display a banner or something. Just so long as it is obvious that advertising is going on. They shouldn't try to sneak ads in with the search results though.
Google doesn't seem to have stopped yet. Are they going to?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Crow T. Trollbot
it would put an end to those annoying Windows is better than Linux ads that come up everytime I use google to search for Linux help. wait a minute.. isn't this like making it illegal to have any competing product next to what your looking for? stores arranged by brand anyone?
I want the French off this planet.
I simply cannot believe that the birthplace of 'Liberty' has de-evolved into a mewling cesspool of cry-baby protectionists and nutball bureaucrats!
Why can they not see how absurd they have become?
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Not necessarily. If I'm searching for Brand X automotive parts, I do NOT want hits for brand Y. I do want hits for dealers of Brand X, and reviews of Brand X equipment, and I expect to get them, not shills for others' imitations. If it then turns out that the dealers also carry other brands, I can find them through the dealers' websites.
Less is more.
i would tell France to go fvck yourself...
There's no reason why Google should have to take this kind of abuse.
They should shut down google.fr (but keep control of the domain name so no one takes it over), and maybe even block French IPs from accessing the rest of Google.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Google doesn't have to stop returning search results of competitor's pages that mention the brand requested by the searches. They just have to stop returning ads purchased by those competitors when the brand is requested. This isn't so surprising: we'd be scandalized if you could just pay Google to return your website among the search results for your competitor. So the paid placement is separated into ads. But we'd also be suspicious if we asked a vendor of both Coke and Pepsi for a "Coke", and they offered us Pepsi instead, or even brought it up as an alternative in the transaction - even though they're entirely free to promote whichever product they stock. The entire issue is whether Google is diluting the association of the brand's unique mark by delivering its competitors with the same association. I'm not sure that just prohibiting mention in even clear ads is the answer. Maybe just returning an ad for the requested brand, prioritized among associated competitors who've purchased placement in clearly marked advertising separate from "non-ad" results. But as consumers, this ruling protects us from "you ask for this, and they give you that" bait & switch.
--
make install -not war
"Since Google's normal ad service has been declared illegal in France, Google will cease such activities in France. The most technically feasible method of doing this is to make Google's service inaccessible from all IP netblocks assigned to the geographic area of France and any entities based in France who, were they to access Google, would do so under the aegis of French law. In addition we will no longer be accepting ad placement from companies where the transaction would be governed by French law."
If I go to a store and ask for "Louis Vuitton" is it trademark infringement if the sales person also shows me Dior or some other maker's products? I would argue that as long as Google's ads do not mislead the user into thinking that the link is for "Louis Vuitton" then it is no different than a store clerk showing me a competing good.
All Google is doing is recognizing that people use specific terms to represent generic actions. I may search for "Louis Vuitton" but really intend to look at luxury goods of a wide range of makers -- the trademark name is only being used to find hits in the category. As long as the ads don't pretend to offer something they don't (bait and switch), I would argue that Google is serving the purpose of search.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Now that is a very good decision, if google (and others) comply.
This way both those examples will still show up when searching for generic terms, like cosmetica, health, fashion,... but they will not be able anymore to accurately target eachother. Which is nice!
Dependency hell? =>
I realize that this is Slashdot and you are therefore entitled to mindless knee-jerk reactions, but this only applies to TRADEMARKED keywords and PAID RESULTS. Therefore SCO can't buy adwords so that their ads show up when you search for IBM.
Oh, I forgot; this is Slashdot!! What was I smoking?
seriously ... what a surprise, the french don't like competition ...
... you know I'm right!
yeah yeah I know, -1 Troll
I cannot stand anymore of this socialist/communist nonsense. Google can offer anything they want as their response to your search; they can offer the statisically worst result possible for your search. If it's something the google user doesn't want to see, (on the same grounds that google can post any response they want) the user retains the freedom to either not click on the link or not use google.
Now when you Google "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys ", you get the French court system.
As the happy capitalised sibling post points out, this only affects the Google AdWords system, which ties ads to specific words. From now on, people are not to be allowed to tie their ad to the name of their competitor.
I could see this being very difficult to regulate, though.
Old SNL joke that seems unwittingly relevant. No one will remember it anyhow...
"No Coke, Pepsi! Pepsi! Pepsi! Pepsi!"
ideas, products, places to visit ...
Not that everyone has the same opportunities, due to lumpiness in the space time continuum, conspiracies run by the Illuminati, the oppression of the proletariat by evil oppressors etc, but for those opportunies each person [outside a survival-only situation] *does* have, there are -- for practical purposes -- an infinite number of possibilities, different ways for them to expend their life energy.
Buy an iPod? Hey, that sounds good! One day I might.
Join a monastery? Hmm. Less appealing, to me, but you might think differently, spend your iPod money on the planefare to your new contemplative existence.
Write and send a postcard? Nah, I'd rather spend the same amount of time sipping some tea over a Dashiell Hammet book today, thanks.
And that's just about things that aren't even immediately related! The point is that we have finite, inexactly known stretches of time on earth and an incalculably wide set of preferences. Things that are closer to each other in form -- one clothing brand versus another, say -- may be more obviously in competition for mindspace (and money), but what about snowboard pants versus special tango-dancin' pants? Are those competitors? To ask that the government of France (or anywhere else) to determine exactly what is in competition with what else (and to what degree) would require magical powers that I more than suspect are far out of its reach.
For a country to pretend that the "market" (or any market) is simple enough to be intelligently or justifiably handicapped with such hamhanded, thought-constricting, interventionist rules comes close to parody. (In the Soviet Union, where the state was supposed to make intelligent choices on behalf of the downtrodden man who would otherwise be exploited by capitalism, it might have been a natural fit, though.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Anonymous Coward," you and all your silly English T-ro-lls.
Why the heck is this rated funny? What if it said [some other ethnic group] suck?
Man, that sucks. Sometimes I search on Google for a brand name specifically so that I can learn about possible competitors from the ads. I think these ads helps me be a better consumer. I hope they don't go away.
No, this is like an ad for Dior being placed next to a Vuitton display.
Here's a true story. I posted this in another article, but I'll post it here for posterity: a few miles from where I live, there's a Ford (or Toyota, I can't remember which) dealership. Right next to it is a billboard advertising another Ford (again, or Toyota) dealership, with the text "Drive a few extra miles and save". It's the same exact type of thing as the situation with Google--this sign even plays on the fact that it's right next to a competing dealership selling the same models.
It's perfectly legal and no different than the situation with Google.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
I liked this line "when even the Germans don't want to fight, take the hint Mr Bush".
Fat Mike from NOFX
Way to much government interaction here.. But doesnt this only effect companies in France? The Frenchies funked up rulings cant effect companies that arent based there can they?
Google should just tell them to fuck off and laissez faire.
...is "competitors of Company XYZ"?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Like most people, I like seeing different options when I search for an item. If I do a search for a ford truck and I get the results I am looking for along with an ad for a chevy truck, so what. I can ignor the chevy, or maybe the chevy is at a better price. And if I was to never look for a chevy I would not have found out about the price difference.
You can't remove them or they will remove you. (They have a nice arsenal of nuclear weapons.)
Here is my main issue with this judgement.
I, as a consumer frequently SERACH FOR competitors of known brands. Often i am looking to see what the market is because i am dis-satisfied with the brand i am familiar with. Putting in search terms such as "geico competitors" you will not get any relevant listings.
I found the most effective means of finding other product offerings in a related market is by simply looking through the ad placements on google when searching simply for the brand name i recognize.
By ordering google to stop disaplying compeitotrs ads, they have effectivly denied me any solid capability to find out about what competing products there are in the marketplace, hence hindering compitition, and promoting monopolistic control.
It is a terrible day when trademark protection extends as far as information services. Will they make it illegal to place ads for comepting companies next to each other in newspapers? Will they make it illegal to place gap ads next to macys ads on Television?
This is a ridulous abuse of governance that only hinders the tax-paying public, and stifles economic growth through compitiion, as well as inovation amogst service providers.
Amazing. Whats next.... patents on 1's and 0's ??!!
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
The U.S. didn't give Yahoo! the green light, in August the Appellate Court said that there was no jurisdiction to hear the case, so essentially the U.S. said, maybe it is ok, maybe it's not.
Do Louis Vuitton's customers actually find out about Louis Vitton by searching Google?
I'd assume some one buying Louis Vuitton is doing it because of the name not because they offer the best price.
The intended purpose of trademarks was to give consumers a reliable way of identifying a product. However, identification is not the same as control. When I search for a trademarked name, it is entirely appropriate to get information about competing products, as long as it is clear that those competing products are different from the product I was looking for. Likewise, it is entirely appropriate to report bad experiences with a trademarked product using the trademark--the trademark is there for identification, not just for advertising.
Limiting the use of trademarks only to communications that the trademark owner likes and approves of is bad for consumers and really contradicts the purpose of trademark law. Trademarks were intended as a protection for buyers, not as an advertising vehicle for corporations.
This just in - a French court has ordered Google to stop displaying the text "We Surrender!" in large flashing letters whenever a user types in the search terms "Germany" and "France".
#DeleteChrome
I've been thinking about ways Google could respond to these sorts of demands for a while now. From what I understand of trademarks and copyrights (classes I haven't quite gotten to in my tenure at law school) Google is potentially infringing when it grabs froogle data, descriptions of page contents, caching the pages, you name it... the website has a supposed right that they CAN enforce if they wish.
I would propose that if a company has problem with Google AdWords, or Froogle collection, or whatever, that Google have a way for that company to register their complaint. Upon receipt of that complaint, Google will honor their request by completely removing them from the search database. For example, if General Motors filed a complaint that when you searched for their name that Ford came up first, Google would PURGE GM entirely from the system such that GM would never, ever show up... period. Google owes no duty to GM to produce their name when searched for, only a duty to NOT produce a competitors name. It seems that with this sort of trade off, companies would back down from asserting their rights.
-Sean
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
If I were in charge of Google, I'd just block French IPs from connecting. That saves them the effort of redoing their ad system and it would place a lot of pressure on the France to overrule this court decision.
If I'm searching for AC-Delco parts and some Bosch ads appear on the side (or top in that demarcated section), what's it to me if all the actual search hits are AC-Delco?
Plus, like others said, it's nice to have alternatives available.
GTRacer
- Not to be confused with GTR-Racer
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
no need for that, just pull all physical presence out of France
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You know, my local grocery store does basically the same thing.
Whenever I buy X brand of product, I often get coupons printed out and handed to me for a competing product Y from a different company.
Nobody said anything about killing anyone.
There are lots of other lovely planets nearby. They could then pass all of the silly laws they want without bothering anyone cursed with any common sense.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
So I had to search for Louis and there are no ads. Then I did a knee jerk search for "Louis Vuitton Nazi" and hey, they really are Nazi's... they collaborated back in the 40's with Hitler!
Guess the more things change... the more they stay the same!
This will only affect citizens of france. I don't live in france, so I could really care less what laws they choose to make in their own country. This will NOT change search results around the world. That wouldn't even make any sense if it did, France doesn't have control over the rest of the world.
You're missing the point.
Let's suppose that you are Louis Vuitton. You've spent a lot of years and a lot of money building up your brand name. So now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products. If you were Louis Vuitton you would not be happy about that.
And to claim that people searching for 'Louis Vuitton' are merely doing a generic search for 'luxury good' is just plain stupid. If I search for 'Louis Vuitton' then I only want to see search results for Louis Vuitton. To display anything else is unethical.
Doesn't it contradict the whole idea of a free market?
I mean, google is a tool for users, and i believe that the vast majority of them(us) are consumers. It should only be fair that if I search for hair products, I will recieve all the possible results.
And besides, it seems as though companies try to avoid the competition by forcing google to "eliminate" the other companies.
Where does it stop? should resturants demand the city to close down nearby resturants? Should grocery stores have only one brand of pasta on the shelves?
OK, allow me to say that I am all in favor of trash-talking the French, and to point out that the current Government is correct to take the lead in this area.
You see, Frenchmen have got it better than the rest of us, and therefore need to be taken down a notch!
For example, the average French citizen gets more than twice as much yearly vacation as an American, despite working only 35 hours (or less) a week!
Furthermore, successful French men are expected to have beautiful mistresses, and to spend time with them nearly every day!
French women are... ok, lets just stop there. If you are an American man who has actually been to France, you know what I'm talking about.
French food is incredibly flavorful and diverse; half-a-dozen or more other nations' cuisines are derivative from that of the French. And although the French eat and drink like gluttons, they have less heart disease, obesity, and alcoholism than we do!
And this is only talking about today - we really don't want to talk about the French contributions to warfare (Napoleon invented the general staff, people!) or philosophy, or literature, or art, or the formation of the United States - let's face it, the past of the French people is even more illustrious than their present, they make us look like a sad bunch of underacheivers, especially when you consider our superior natural resources, vast land area, and distance from marauding Germans.
That's it, making uniformed rants on Slashdot without RTFM is just not enough, NUKE THE BASTARDS!
Close down all Google offices in France and tell the French court to go fsck themselves. Then display whatever the h*** you want to, Google.
If the French want to regulate the an international computer network, I suggest that they spend their citizens' tax dollars to fund the development of it. In case they didn't notice, the Internet was developed by the U.S. at taxpayer expense. And don't tell me about HTTP being developed outside of the U.S. That's like claiming Ford should have regulatory rights over the U.S. highway system because some of the cars that use it are Fords.
When doing a search for Linux you'll no longer see ads from Microsoft offering their "Get the Facts" comparison campaign.
And, of course, the reverse is also true.
that's it. i'm making some rulings of my own right now:
1. france must turn in all computers to google, which will be used for good from now on (rather than evil)
2. france's courts are allowed to make whatever rulings they want, but the rest of the world isn't going to listen to them
3. nobody better talk smack or sue google evarrrr again
No. They enforce retroactively.
i) they insert clause in standard contract saying "We, the undersigned, are not buying our competitors trademarks"
ii) if competitors notice that they have, and complain, google uses this clause to cancel contract, but keep money.
iii) profit!
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
add them to blacklists. If people in france can't do business via the internet with the US, you would see this descision get change very fast.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Louis Vuitton
or, maybe better yet:
France
You just slashdotted NPR!
don't dismiss them out of hand becuase they are "French" - how racist is that!
not racist at all, French is not a race.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
You should check what Yahoo, Google and the likes are ready to swallow to get their share of the chinese market !
This ruling only affects the french ISPs, like human rights censorship only affect chinese Google portals. Do you think US laws rule the entire planet ?
But this is a pretty myopic view. How are AdWords any different than a TV commercial that says "Our brand X has a TCO lower than brand Y?" In other words, it is just a way for a smaller (or larger!) brand to fight for market share. What we're really talking about here is restricting freedom of speech to protect companies' profits.
I'm not big on clicking on ads, but occasionally I have been enticed to click on a relevant AdWord ad, and actually found a company that fit my needs better.
Companies with strong brands often charge the consumer a "brand premium" that has more to do with name recognition than quality. Corollary: there is probably a cheaper company out there with an equally good product.
I think this is more about bludgeoning competitors with your brand name than protecting consumers; after all, if the competitor is just selling knock-offs there are already legal remedies. We don't need to restrict speech to prevent this.
I lived in France for five years and I have to say the "brainwashed american" parent is generally right about the attitude of the French authorities...
(That doesn't make them as nasty as the US, though.)
Bah. Let's see how Louis Vuitton likes their search results now!
(Link provided for entertainment purposes only. Do not click.)
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
If I were the folks at Google I would be
crying Hypocrite! The european union is
suing Microsoft for Monopolistic practises
(France is part of the EU as far as I know)
and now France is trying to bar google from
promoting a practice which would promote
competition! If they had their way, anyone
in europe typing in "Microsoft" into google
would ge NO ads for linux solutions...
Sounds like someone had one-to-many glasses
of wine.
Honestly, does anyone reading /. have a clue what this sentence refers to??
What's a dior? Is it GPL'ed?
De nouveau, les cours de Français et le gouvernement nous étonnent
avec la stupidité et le manque de justesse. Pouvez-vous imaginer une
compagnie française mettre un traducteur libre de langue sur
la web? Pouvez-vous imaginer une conception égale de gouvernement français
du besoin d'une telle chose ?
Peut-être ils devraient se limiter à la nourriture et à la
philosophie et laisser le vrai monde aux gens qui peuvent le
manipuler.
Once again, the French courts and government astonish us with stupidity and ineptitude.
Can you imagine a French company putting a free language translator on the web?
Can you imagine a French government even conceiving of the need for such a thing?
Perhaps they should restrict themselves to food and philosophy and leave the real world to people who can handle it.
Translation by www.systransoft.com, which to my knowledge, is not a French company.
(from http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html)
The Complete Military History of France
***Please note that the Web designer is not American and blaming the Web designer for America's history is illogical. Though you may critisize this oversimplified French history all you wish, blaming or threatening the Web designer is not nice.
We are still accepting submissions from history researchers.
Last update: October 18, 2004.
- Gallic Wars
- Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.
- Hundred Years War
- Mostly lost, saved at last by female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare; "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman." Sainted.
- Italian Wars
- Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.
- Wars of Religion
- France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots
- Thirty Years War
- France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.
- War of Revolution
- Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.
- The Dutch War
- Tied
- War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War
- Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.
- American Revolution
- In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."
- French Revolution
- Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.
- The Napoleonic Wars
- Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.
- The Franco-Prussian War
- Lost. Germany first plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.
- World War I
- Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.
- World War II
- Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.
- War in Indochina
- Lost. French forces plead sickness; take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu
- Algerian Rebellion
- Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a western army by a Non-Turkic Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare; "We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese and Esquimaux.
- War on Terrorism
- France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's.
The question for any country silly enough to count on the French should not be "Can we count on the French?", but rather "How long until France collapses?"
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. All you do is
Everyone else is using the new MSN search!
And FreeBSD can't buy an ad that shows up when you search for Redhat.
Google can offer anything they want as their response to your search
Er, no they can't. You might want them to but, well, they can't.
To be extreme, they can't show you child porn. Is that too socialist for you ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
IMHO this is a pretty short-sighted ruling. If I were google, I'd halt business in France, and possibly block access to google from known French ip address blocks. That ought to annoy enough people in France so they get the French court system to reverse it's ruling.
A local grocery store is being sued for stocking competitors' merchandise next to each other...
I would just do nothing... Let them go after Dior for buying the negative ads if they must prosecute someone. If I am in the business of advertising, I need as many 'eyeballs' looking at my ads as possible...
...even if the views are coming from cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys.
PS- Thanks for the Statue of Liberty
- no sig here
This is just like last time.
I know why. Because they are commie-fascist cowards.
http://www.fuckfrance.com/
So now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products. If you were Louis Vuitton you would not be happy about that.
This is no different than the practice of spiffs or push money to motivate the sales force to sell a particular product. I agree that it is not pleasant for the maker (and may be unethical toward the consumer), but paying the retailer for favored position, promotion, etc. is widespread.
If I search for 'Louis Vuitton' then I only want to see search results for Louis Vuitton.
Then you and I are different in our search habits. I sometimes use a brand name that I know as a convenient term to find hits in a category (especially to find reviews of products in the category or retailers in the category). Category terms are sometimes harder to create and more ambiguous then brand names. Perhaps Google needs a search modifier or preference to distinguish between "strict" (your style) and "loose" (my style) of searches.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Google is a company. Like all companies, it's goal is to make profit. If AMD wants to pay to show advertisement everytime that someone searches for "Pentium," why not? AMD is not paying to change the results of the search engine, they are paying to change the results of the advertisement that pops up on the sidebar. This is a legit business model. In fact, this is the basis of all advertisement...to display ads in a place that makes consumers rethink their desicion. To outlaw this is ludicrous. You might as well ban all advertisement.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
We feel we have lots of reasons to be pricks, but the french do it for fun, mostly because they know it pisses us off. In an age when everyone is sucking up to the US politically, I appreciate them them turning up their noses, even if we blow up another one of their embassies.
If you don't love them for being pricks you have to give it to them for the red wines and champagnes!
As long as my stupid ass neighbors keep refusing to buy french wine I am stocking my "freedom cellar" like mad.
OTOH you could leave since you don't seem to like it here...
Grocery stores like Giant and Pathmark give you competitive coupons when you buy items, I always wondered why they didn't complain about that.
This sig is the express property of someone.
And in breaking news, French telephone directories are only allowed to have one company entry per page to not fall foul of a new law covering adverts...
Martin Piper
Owner - ReplicaNet and RNLobby
So what happens if I'm a retailer who sells a product at a discount (legally, not gray market), that is also sold by the manufacturer?
Can I put an ad, for, say, a Dior fragrance to sell on my site if Dior also sells direct? Or are they cutting off our market?
Design for Use, not Construction!
And you're missing the point.
This is not about search results. It is about ads down the right side. NOT the search results. Right?
"Let's suppose that you are Louis Vuitton. You've spent a lot of years and a lot of money building up your brand name. So now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products. If you were Louis Vuitton you would not be happy about that."
Of course I would not be happy, the question though is would it be illegal for someone to do that?
Let's say a rum maker pays a bartender to ask patrons if they want "their brand and coke" whenever someone asks for a rum and coke or a bacardi and coke. Would this be illegal.
I always thought a trademark was to be a mark so a customer could be sure who he was dealing with.
Would it be legal for me to hire you to say "Coors is better." whenever you heard someone mention the name of another beer?
I don't think you can actually buy search result placement from Google. Your search results will always be according to their general algorithms.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Another typical example of the stupidity and narrow-mindness of the average /. reader. 99.99% of the French won't even know about this silly decision made by a court who probably doesn't have any clue on how the Internet works, and yet 'the French' suck and you want them 'off the planet'. How nice of you.
Wake up, the French have nothing to do with this, not even the French government, and companies that sue for profit are surely not a French invention.
Your first paragraph is overstating the problem behind France's ruling. The problem is that Google is getting paid to tie someone else's trademark to a third party's ad. When that third party is someone pretending to be the person who really has the trademark (i.e., a counterfeiter) this is clearly improper. It also seems somewhat improper if Google is paid to tie the word "Pepsi" to ads for Coca Cola.
On the other hand, your second paragraph makes a reasonable point. However, AFAIK the French court stipulated that this applies to competitors, such as the counterfeit bags, so that the critical sites you mention aren't affected unless perhaps they are funded by competitors.
Similarly, it might seem reasonable that Saks or Nieman Marcus would be able to buy an advertisment linking them to Vuitton, as they sell those products. However, even this is a little gray as there are also Vuitton stores (e.g., Lenox Square Mall has both a Louis Vuitton store and a Nieman Marcus, so at Lenox Square they are competitors). This gets back to the difficulty others have mentioned of Google identifying exactly who is and is not a competitor.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
lets say your searching for "rackspace" hosting. you type "rack space" into goole. The first two ads that pop up are titled "rack space" , but they link to someother site selling solutions (the url is listed in small type under the link).
So basically companies are createing links with names that are incorrect in ads. I think thats where the problem is, if the name of your company is trademarked. I could put a "ford" link that links to chevy.com and that is very deceptive.
buyer beware.
I leave it to the courts to figure out if it illegal.
I think Louis Vuitton should not be suing Google, instead, it should be suing the companies who post the adwords that violate trademarks. For example, if Dior decides to have an advertisement appear when someone searches for "Louis Vuitton" then perhaps Louis Vuitton should sue Dior for infringing on their trademark.
If Dior put a full-page ad in New York Times encouraging people to buy Dior instead of Louis Vuitton, does that mean that the New York Times is responsible for violating the trademark, or would it be Dior?
Google should just declare war on France.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Over the last summer I was managing an adwords campaign for a small art gallery. When we noticed that entering in our gallery name came up with an adwords ad for a competing gallery whom we had never heard of, I was tasked with finding out how to fix this. We considered suing the other gallery, suing whoever else we could (this was in LA, mind you), or my solution: have Google fix it. I emailed the Google support folks and they responded saying basically that we should just deal with it ourselves and they can't do anything to take those ads away. So, I wrote a nice email to the competing gallery explaining my issue. The next day, no more ad! Since this is small-time compared to the big companies involved here, I don't know if this situation applies, but who knows... Maybe I should have sued Google so I can pay off my college bills :)
1) block French people from using Google, blame government
2) Wait for people to overthrow said government
3) sell advertising indiscriminately, and profit.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Competition Bad....Monopolies Good....
Best not let your citizens think for themselves, and giving them options is more then they can handle.
Must be their simplistic European Lifestyle?
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
Okay, so here's why it is different. All of these "paying a sales person to push something" arguments are incorrect.
The problem in this case is that people who were NOT Louis Vuitton were paying google to use the tradename as a search term. It is a tradename, usage is legally restricted, and not google's to sell in the first place.
When I go to the grocery store, there is printer next to the cash register. Companies can pay the store to print me coupons for their product when I buy a competitor's product.
Is this illegal in France?
This is no question of free competition or free advertising. The question is to know wether a NoName-vendor shall have the right to place ads when a user searches for BigBrand(tm). The very fact that NoName pays $1 for this shows that it extracts at least $1 in sales by being associated with the name "BigBrand". This is precisely what trade marks laws are supposed to render illegal. All the rest is pure bullshit.
First rule of Louis Vuitton Club: You do not talk about Louis Vuitton.
Second rule of Louis Vuitton Club: You do not talk about Louis Vuitton.
any indication you acknowledge the existance of Louis Vuitton, you will be sued for copyright infringement..
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
You certainly would be unhappy. But it doesn't follow that the government should outlaw it just to make you happy.
And to claim that people searching for 'Louis Vuitton' are merely doing a generic search for 'luxury good' is just plain stupid. If I search for 'Louis Vuitton' then I only want to see search results for Louis Vuitton. To display anything else is unethical.
By your logic, then, all search engine advertisements are unethical. Perhaps you think search engines should be run as taxpayer-funded public utilities, instead of by for-profit private companies?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
...even if the views are coming from cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys.
...or even if Google is owned by fat-scoffing-Vietnam-losing-rednecks.
hiring top notch lawyers in the same manner that they've been hiring the best engineers. Hopefully they realize that an engineer-centric environment may sound nice on paper but a complete functioning organization is necessary to stay alive.
Just ask Microsoft.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
..They're still a bit 'peeved' that we started that whole 'Freedom Fries', 'Freedom Toast' and 'France Sucks' campaigns.
Besides, When was the last time France ever won anything related to a 'Battle', even if it's in the courts?
French court has ordered Slashdot to stop displaying Microsoft banners....
if i do a search for mustang, being that mustang is not a car first and formost, it's a horse. just like corvette, a corvette is a small battleship. the kicker being that they are both automobiles. secondly, i'd expect car ads, and i'd be disappointed if i didn't get them. if someone does a search for Dior Parfum, Dior is a copyrighted name, but parfum isn't. i expect parfum ads. do a search for anderson consulting, i expect that the keyword consulting will kick up some ad results, and i'd be limited in my searh if it didn't.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
I've just received word that Google.fr is no longer in existence. The domain will be replaced with "Google.freedom"
You know what?
Why not just uproot and remove all administrative functions from France? Do their European business out of England, or Poland, or Germany or any other country. France's legal system is peculiar, to say the least. I'd say that it is a direct competitor to the lunacy that we see here in the US.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Coke will be suing Pepsi or vice versa for displaying commericals on the same telivision station it's advertising on.....
When will the slashdot crowd understand that laws are different around the world.
In the US you can have ads where you directly compare your product to your competeters. This practise is _Illegal_ in most western countries. Or at least most European countries. It makes it so that you can not directly "badmouth" a different company in your ads. And that is the way it has to be in my opinion. Else youll end up with marketting campaigns like in the us where you try to create a negative image of the competitor..
This is just a decision derived from that law, Google should have gotten a clue and checked up on such laws before opening european branches.
There's no reason why America should have to take this kind of abuse.
...
They should shut down Iraq (but keep control of the government so no one takes it over), and maybe even prevent Iraqis from accessing America.
Oh, wait
So the Germans can march in the shade!
Louis Vuitton spends a lot of money building a brand name? *FINE*. But that doesn't obligate the couty system to protect all uses of the phrase "louis vuitton". The only legal protection he should have is -- people can't call THEIR products lous vuitton.
We could extended the same argument, since Louis Vuitton spends a fortune advertising his name, why should people be allowed to speak negatively about his products? After all, he "spent a lot of years and a lot of money builing up" his brand name. You, and the french, are ridiculous.
I would expect this from the french, they have a "planned" economy, over 50% of the employees are state employees.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Every go'vt seems to think they can impose their national law on the net. Unless you live in a dictatorship or perhaps China that's just not going to happen. Watching politicians trying to cope with the advance of technology is like watching ants run from a kid with a magnifying glass.
The French courts seems to have the wrong impression that it has absolute jurisdiction over anything and everything on the net. Just like the Yahoo/Ebay/Nazi paraphernalia issue.
They especially don't have jurisdiction if Google does not have any legal business presence in France and they can't really do much to Google otherwise if Google were to refuse (provided Google has no future plans of opening up offices in France). The French don't censor the internet and since they don't have legal presence in France, it's a bit hard to fine them and expect payment. Plus the US courts are probably not going to help the French courts if Bush has anything to say about it, since I'm sure he holds a grudge against the French.
Man...all this reminds me of that one Halloween ep of the Simpsons. "AHAHAHAHA! No no no, in francias...OHOHOHOHOHOH"
Nobody cares about france anyway
I have a question, what happens when a brand name becomes generic, like kleenex, aspirin, and even xerox and tivo are pretty much generic now. Does that mean if I sell facial tissues, I would be allowed to buy the ad word for kleenex?
Go to a restaurant that only sells Coke and ask for a Pepsi (or vice versa). Listen to the answer you get. There's a reason for it.
Let's suppose that you are Louis Vuitton. You've spent a lot of years and a lot of money building up your brand name. So now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products. If you were Louis Vuitton you would not be happy about that.
I walk into a restraunt and order a Coke. The waitress offers me a Pepsi. Coke has "spent a lot of years and a lot of money building up its brand name", and "someone is *PAYING*" the waitress to offer customers Pepsi products when they try to order a Coke. Should this be illegal too?
Google bans the nation of France from accessing google services until they surrender, raising a white flag, and agree to Google's terms of use. ...Google returns access to the French within the hour.
//Nothing to see here, please move along.
About misrepresentation. You cannot have have an advert in an article pretending to be something it isn't.
Now, just because adverts SEEM to be related to you search, it doesn't mean they should be.
What if you were searching for Armani, and Dior just happened to buy an advert, and it wasn't through an adsense?
SO, firstly, google have stated that they do not want people to even misrepresent themselves on adverts.
But the problem is what if you are looking for related companies? I search for dior, looking for competitors because I WANT TO.
But that isnt the purpose of the people doing these googleads, the reason they do this is to try and get a bigger net... it is a grey area of the world, if google had made a stance prior to this ruling I would have felt better because now they seem that they are being pushed around, this isn't what I have expected from google. (perhaps they have grown too fast?)
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
1) tell the french that if they want to block google, they need to take care of that themselves
and
2) permanently hard code in a feature to search engine that treats all searches for "Louis Vuitton" as a search for Dior
So does this mean that Microsoft won't be allowed to put their Windows beats Linux ads when you search for Linux on the new msn.com search?
Probably about time for France Internet users to get "no results" from their Google searches.
Hey, its a free service - without ads it won't be there - so let them see what their future will be.
I assume that they will outlaw the Yellow Pages or whatever version of that they have just to be consistent since it's esentially the same thing. I look for a company in the Yellow pages and, lo and behold, whole bunch of competing companies on the same pages!!
great work frenchies, that is why the world is leaving you morons behind.
oh and how about the fantastic cap of 35 hours a week they can work....
french people GET A GRIP ON REALITY
yeah, but Moby Dick doesn't throw out tons of plastic, chemicals and other consumer waste per day.... or did I miss that chapter of Melville's?
Yes, you should have to litigate every single claim in every single place you do business. That would make a lot of lawyers happy, but would be completely impractical in a global business environment.
That's where international arbitration and the 1958 New York Convention come in. In sum (and in theory), a decision from an international arbitral tribunal can be applied anywhere in the world.
This is the basic mode for opening new stores for these two chains - find out where a reasonably well run drug store or bake shop is with plenty of traffic, then open up a block away. Usually buries the competitor in a matter of months. Perfectly legal.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
There are many ways.
First, it can ask its court to enforce the decisions. Which, in practice, means seizing as many assets of google as necessary in France.
If that's not sufficient, ask EU courts to enforce the French decision. That's almost automatic for EU courts, so google's assets in the EU could easily be seized.
If that's still not enough, ask the US state courts (California courts probably) to enforce the decision. It's long and difficult, but possible.
It's not going to take much to get the French to surrender!
This sig has been removed pending an investigation.
Does the user want Anderson Accounting? Anderson Computers? Anderson Farms? Anderson Law Firm? Anderson & Samuel Law Firm? Anderson Anderson Anderson & Sons Law firm?
I prefer the Anderson Anderson Anderson Anderson Anderson Anderson Anderson Baked Beans Anderson Anderson Anderson and Anderson Law Firm.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Since clearly you have no concept of how wars work and what World War II entailed, it probably had something to do with reparations since 70% of France's population was killed during World War II. I'm sure the French government saw no reason why an American company such as Yahoo! should be able to profit from Naziism when it all but destroyed their country.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
It's simple. The competitor is trying to make money off of my success (presumably) and my trademarked name. The competitor should be entering in keywords that are related to whatever business they are in, and not using MY REGISTERED TRADEMARK. This practice is unethical whether or not it can reasonably be enforced.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
How would USA have the jurisdiction to affect the way a insert_favorite_non-American_country_name_here company operates? And yet it happens all the time.
Never heard of that one.
However, I have heard of Ukrainian, which is what Milla actually is, having been actually born there.
Google just needs to remove all traces of the Vuitton corp websites, leaving any competitor or parody sites that refer to them. Any searches for "Vuitton" will then only show the competitors and not the company site. When the company complains, tell them they were removed to comply with the lawsuit they brought, and to note that there are no ads for their competitors, so "stuff it".
This would likely prevent others from trying a similar tactic.
non internet areas such as the "Yellow Pages" or Junk Mail advertisements? I always thought that a quality product or service would not need fear competition.
Actually this is exactly the same as a practice that has existed in the paper yellow pages for almost it's entire existance. The small entries are in alphabetical order, but the display adds can be placed anywhere. If you wany your add next to that of your biggest competitor, you just have to pay for the privilege.
Google is not redirecting the link to the webpage - the equivalent to having a sales person redirect the customer. They're allowing the competitor to have an ad appear in a separate section when a keyword - in this case a prime competitors name, is entered. In most of the world this is common practice in all forms of advertising.
France has a law that forbids comparison in ads and is extending it to include Web Searches. I don't think it's right, but since it's the law, unless Google can find a loophole, they'll have to comply in France. They'll also have to comply in other places where similar laws exist.
...carrier dead.....
remove them...
Ironically, on the same day French courts also ruled that yellow page publishers cannot place ads of competiting companies adjacent to each other. If a company has any competitors within a given category, its ad much appear on the page by itself. The purpose is to reduce the likelyhood that a consumer will realize that competitors may exist ad being viewed.
imagine an american court ruling the same against a french company. where is the outrage? well, france is always right.
- imitation Vuitton handbags
- reviews Toshiba cameras
- Monsanto bans replanting corn seed
- Enron fraud
- Wal-Mart union busting
- Ford Explorer rollover
- Paris Hilton fan page ("I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
... ")
- Burger King nutritional information
- SCO lawsuit
The right to post Web pages about such topics is constitutionally protected; the right to advertise them may be on the rocks.Allow companies to remove their 'trademark'-protected name from google... with the stipulation that ALL refrences to said trademark be removed. So in this case searching for 'vuitton' will *only* be bringing up the non-official search results, thus negating the utility of the removal in the first place. Google won't be making any money off the ad-words for the trademark, but then neither will vuitton.com .
Actually they can be sued if you ask for Coke and they serve Pepsi without informing you. But if you ask for a cola - they have no obligation to tell you the alternative. Similarly, they're free to sell both and place them side by side. If you ask where's the Coke and they direct you to a cooler that has both, no law has been broken and the choice is yours.
...carrier dead.....
Dior is also owned by LVMH, FYI. Louis Vuitton is only staffed by Louis Vuitton employees, even in stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Nieman Marcus. They're leased departments. So you would never have the opportunity for a sales person to show you a Dior when you went to see a Louis Vuitton. Dior is also a leased department and operates the same way. LVMH has spent a lot of money protecting their brand so consumers have every confidence in the product.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
"Today at 2:30pm Google anounced it was officially at war with the nation of france. 2:31pm France surrenders"
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
I would like to think some of us(myself,i hope) would still be on the side of sanity.
Even putting that aside thou, Ms has built less trust then Goggle has.It is not just about monopoly, it is about what you do with your monopoly. Google at least appears to be less abusive then MS has been hence more default trust.
Maybe google is still young and innocent. Maybe 10 years form now we will look back and see the evil seed that was growing. I doubt it thou.
What do you say to the man that has nothing? Cast it away!!
As a consumer, I never expected to find out that it was illegal for a competitor to advertise in the "Voitton" section of a website or magazine. That's why they're called competitors, because they're expected to try and steal your customers. That's what advertising is for.
Changa hates change.
Try cheese eating surrender monkeys.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
you missed it. It is right after the quarterback scores the winning touchdown and right before the dance number with the cute little cat.
What do you say to the man that has nothing? Cast it away!!
How can that be unethical. Its seems you're being a bit of a pussy.
If your product is good enough, then you should say "bring it on...compare...ours is best".
Do you think BMW is afraid of being compared to Chevy? Apparently, Citroen is...
Do you think Goodyear is afraid of being compared to Firestone? Apparently, Michelin is...
Do you think Hershey is afraid of being compared to Mars? I guess only in France...
Seriously, this is incredibley anti-consumer. You can't provide a tool which provides alternatives.
"I'm looking for Michelin Tires!"
"Here are the tires...By the way, here are some Firestones..."
Cripes...how is this unethical??????
I quite often open up the Yellow Pages looking for Papa John's and see an advertisement for Mio's.
There's nothing illegal about this in the bulk of the world, and there's nothing illegal about this in the entire advanced world.
What does this to do adware? I visit LL Bean and Eddie Bauer pop-up appears, thanks to the adware/spyware within, do I have a case?
Congratulations, you've protected a corporate right at the expense of the consumer losing the ability to have additional choices.
Bravo. Well done.
Fortunately, this is only true in France. And frankly, who gives a @#$ about them?
"Hitachi is free to advertise to whomever they like."
Acutally in your world, they aren't. They're not allowed to advertise where it might compete with BMW.
But that's irrelevant. You're wrong.
If Hitachi made a car that competed with BMW, Hitachi is free to put an ad in a car magazine:
"COMPARE US TO BMW. WE'RE BETTER! HERE's WHY!"
That's okay. That's common. The world goes on.
This is the same practice. Now, BMW may not like it, but its good for consumers when companies compete.
Again, this is not comparative advertising, which is illegal in France (which IMO is stupid anyway; why wouldn't I want comparisons drawn between products? the ultimate comparison is up to me anyway)
Want to see half hour infomercials paid for by me presenting an image of impartialitiy comparing my product and your product?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
70% of France's population was killed during World War II
That isn't remotely plausible.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
"It is the paid advertisement that needs to be controlled."
If its truthful, why would it be controlled? That doesn't make sense.
How does this help anybody?
Does this mean they'll also require the French Yellow Pages to list only one business per page, with the opposing page blanked out, so as not to see the competition?
- R
"Chevy cannot put up a billboard with the word "Mustang" and a picture of a Camero."
They could. Chevy could put up a billboard with a picture of a Mustang. And the word "Mustang" and on the bottom "Sucks".
That's perfectly okay.
The restrictions don't work the way you think.
I think it is more like using the yellow and white pages.
If I want to find a bookstore I open up the yellow pages and I can find the "Books" section and see all sorts of advertisements for Barnes and Noble and competitors. And I wouldn't be surprised to see advertisements from competitors.
On the otherhand, if I want to find a Barnes and Noble, I would grab the white pages and look them up. I would be surprised if I found an advertisement for Zupabuuks listed right next to Barnes and Nobel in the white pages.
Furthermore, I might not be too surprised if I saw an advertisement from Barnes and Nobel listed at or near the Barnes and Nobel entry of the white pages.
However, the issue is no longer as clear when you have two competitors listed on the same page in the white pages and one or more has an advertisement.
"Analogies are for idiots who can't argue the exact issue being discussed."
And ad hominums are for people who argue an issue in which they don't have a clue, but feel the need to comment on it anyway.
Perhaps if you watch how issues are discussed before the supreme court, you'd understand analogies are a powerful way of creating roughly equvalents that allow people to understand how laws can or cannot be applied to new areas.
But as soon as you call the person you're trying to convince an "idiot", I have to assume you understand you've already lost the argument.
As long as they charge a heafty "research fee" to companies wishing to advertise in france. While google will do fine, i really don't see this going very well for france.. unless Google's strat is to just keep paying fines. I think in the original of this dupe they said that the fine was $250,000.. not exactly enough to break the bank.
"Yahoo was ordered by a French court to ban Nazi memorabilia from their auctions."
That's only to hide the shame of collaboration through the Vichy government. France is stained forever.
Trivia: Did you know the first action in WW2 for U.S. Troops were against French Troops in North Africa?
And after we'd whipped the French's ass, they refused to concede because they were afraid the Nazi's would be angry with them.
Absolutely true. I invite you to do some reading.
"you assume hypocrisy in the french courts..."
French governments routinely rule in favor what would be best for France (however you define that) instead of on the law.
Its an old tradition in France.
"o now, someone is *PAYING* the sales person in that store to show customers products by Dior everytime they ask to see your products."
Gee, that happens all the time today. Its a common practice in retail.
So...are you over it now? Do you get the entire world works that way? And that its good for the consumer?
I don't have any numbers since I'm not in any way affiliated with Google, but these are my assumptions: first, that most of Google's revnue, or at least a very significant portion, comes from people purchasing ads; second, that most of these purchases come from companies whose primary focus is not France.
If this is the case, then it seems that it would make more sense for Google to stop business with France and French companies alltogether, either by blocking French IPs, or refusing money from companies who do significant business in France. If this ruling were to stand in every country in which Google was accessible then their ad business would essentially dry up. There is no longer any incentive to purchase an ad under search terms like "Ford Motors" because nobody but Ford Motors can. Ford can basically pay whatever it wants since there's going to be near zero demand for copyrighted keywords.
The revnue lost from ads, I would guess, is more than the revue gained by being able to do business is France, in the short or the long term. Of course, I'm not familiar with the economic politics of the EU, so the effect might have more impact than I thought, but, seriously, screw France. The companies who seem to be complaining and suing about this (e.g., Louis Vuitton) aren't even the sort who would be affected if they were delisted from Google alltogether, let alone if their ads were removed.
What a bunch of whiners.
I do not understand what the Beef is about? How can they tell google how they are allow to display thier search engine results?
This policy will not have a long life in the E.U.
Then push the "I'm feeling lucky" button.
Did you mean: french military defeats
I think that is their REAL issue with Google
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Google could just filter the phrase 'Louis Vuitton' (and any similar alternatives) from their search engine... if they're not happy with Google's search results (which is essentially free advertising for them), what's stopping google from just denying them service?
I just checked. If you search google.fr for "Louis Vuitton" no ads are shown, while both google.com and google.co.uk display some ads.
So it seems google is complying with the court order using google.fr. It could be the case that nobody bought "Louis Vuitton" ads at google.fr, but that seems particularly unlikely as Louis Vuitton itself is a French company.
They do that and they're a halfstep away from becoming MS in my book.
Is anyone else here as tired as I am at seeing the ass backwards court decisions that France comes up with?
Both Google and Yahoo! have been hit by the crazy ideas of the French court. I wish they'd just pull out of that market, ban netblocks from that country, and then wait for them to change their mind.
Fuck France.
And yet...if the name of the search engine was "Frogle", and an American court ruled the same way, there'd be rioting in every major E.U. city.
Second time on Slashdot, and people still don't understand:
- In most European countries, companies can't make money with trademarks they don't own. Google is selling in France ads based on existing trademarks: they are wrong.
- google.fr has a legal existence in France and has been sued for trademark-infringement. The consequences are thus only for google.fr.
- It isn't the Adword system that is illegal, but only the words that are trademarks: it won't affect the research results, only some ads.
- the French government hasn't ordered anything against Google: the French courts are independant and the law is 200 years old.
- Google was already ordered to pay a fine to
Hôtels Méridien and Overture lost a trial against Accor in similar cases.
So, NO it is NOT an abuse and it is not even anything specifically French (something Slashdot people seem to like). So why so much noise about that?
To the French courts there are two and only two facts that needed to be considered in order to reach their verdict:
1) Louis Vuitton is a French company
2) Google is an American company
C'mon, you don't think Page and Brin could conquor France?
It's funny to see that 99.99% of /. readers complain about ads, and now everybody seem to think it's a good thing. Is it because it's a French company (or because it's Google) ?
Let's remember this is *advertisement* and that *advertisement* is BBAAAADDD. Information should be free, no strings attached.
On a side note, Vuitton & Dior belong to the same group, and Dior does not sell luggages. The example is poorly chosen. A better example could be Vuitton vs Makers of counterfeit Vuitton bags (remember all the ads for fake Rolex you receive in your mailbox).
If this holds up, wouldn't this affect most business models for free web tools?
Can someone please explain this further to me? I'm at a loss to understand how Google's Adword's problems relate to free web tools, and their business models. The last time I checked, you had to pay for advertising. Please direct me to this free advertising center -- My boss would love the effect on the bottom line.
... and type "us military victories" and the first result is titled "French Military Victories" ;-)
No wonder the french were in bed with Saddam.
Fuck france.
What power does a French court have over Google? If I am searching for a particular comlany or product I want to see others related or competing generally speaking. If yeople don't like it then let them use osmething else. But don't try to force the desires of the view using goverrnment power much less foreign government power.
"f_ck off" plain and simple
1. Google should remove at least all links to Louis Vuitton web pages and perhaps all links to any French companies.
2. Google then adds a signup form for French companies to get re-listed on Google if they agree to all of Google's practices.
3. Google needs to get a list of trademarks from the French government and then block ALL searches originating from France for those trademarks. Only companies that sign up in step 2 will have searchable trademarks.
4. Google is then safe from French companies who would sue using this precident and the French companies who like the way Google operates can continue business as usual.
Note: Google should remain as it is for the rest of the world. Only French IPs will get the pared-down Google.
Sadly, when I searched Microsoft on Google, the only competitor adword I got was Microsoft.
France: Stop showing competitors ads on google!
Google spokesperson: I'm sorry... We'd like to, but I don't think she'd like it.
France: Who?
Google spokesperson: Google. Google wouldn't like it. She's very unhappy with you as it is... You see, she is offended by you trying to inflict your will on her. She's refusing to talk to you, or even recognize you until you send her a nice box of chocolates.
France: Who? What the hell are you talking about?
Google spokesperson: Google. She's very upset with you for all this...
The French are acting like spoiled children. They're not number one in the world (were they ever?) and the jealousy is tearing them up inside. I say handle it just like you'd handle a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum - ignore them. All they want is a little attention; don't give it to them. Maybe they'll STFU after a while.
...to some intersting search results when entering the keywords "France" or "French".
...
actual search results
Your search for France returned xxx,xxx,xxx results.
Cheese eating surrender monkeys - How the French lost to the Germans.
Cheese eating surrender monkeys - Not just for the Americans anymore.
Cheese eating surrender monkeys - You too can get kick backs from oil producing dictatorships.
YHBT
YHL
HAND
It is amazing how much work the French Courts can get done only working 35 hours a week!
You bunch of cry babies.
Google should just block all ads for france from using google, and in return...remove results from the first 5 pages.
Go take a shower.
1) Does this only apply if one is using www.google.fr?
2) What if you are a German citizen using www.google.com from Italy looking for local solutions? If the company you seek has an office in France, does that mean Google is barred from showing you Italian competitors?
I'd be really angry if it did. For some products, I only know of one company that makes something. Those advertisements are often the easiest way to find other companies that do the same thing. It's not like they're popping up advertisements if you go to a specific company's website (ala gator).
Cut the off the Internet and let them eat Teletext.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If you had read what I wrote, then you should already have the answer to your question; which is yes - it's socialist (but only if government prevents google from returning child porn results. It's NOT socialist IF google chooses not to provide child porn as a search result On Their Own Volition. In that case that's their business and there's nothing socialist about it at all).
I think it's time for some guerilla warfare. Google should block all connections from any IP addx in France. Maybe re-direct to a nice message asking them to contact their government if they wish to use google again. The French people would sort out the judge in no time! I think google could take that financial hit and it would be worth it to remind a large government that they serve the people and not the lawyers. Imagine this precedent applied in other ways. For instance what if Coca-Cola decided grocery stores should not be placing Pepsi NEAR their trademaked product.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Actually, I bet the first thing French people would ban is winning wars. The old "if we can't do it, you can't do it either."
the majority of the posts here are essentially expressing outrage that an advertiser would attempt to muscle google into altering it's keyword based advertising policy. the bottom line is that in the vast majority of the situations google will GLADLY bow before their advertisers. please stop acting like google is this benign entity. they do what their advertisers say. google may have opposed this specific issue because they make more $$$ off the louis vuitton knock-offs than they do from the real thing. however, this is clearly not always the case ... read this:
. shtml
http://juneauempire.com/stories/021304/sta_google
(previously posted here)
summary: royal caribbean cruise lines is a big client of google, so they refuse to sell adds that disparage RCCL. the situation doesn't matter.
When Oceana challenged the ban, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google responded with an e-mail advising the group that it doesn't accept ads with "language that advocates against Royal Caribbean.
to what lengths would google refuse? here's an example of open ocean pollution. okay, so you probably won't be drinking that directly. what if it was your groundwater that was polluted? what if it was an industrial plant a few miles away?
google's market dominance would certainly allow them to tell RCCL "too bad". RCCL would probably continue to advertise anyway, or better yet, be forced to address the issues raised by oceana. but they didn't. google chooses to tell the little guy to piss off.
google's dominance allows them to control information. and they are using it to make money, without regard to the good of society. yes of course, it's all legal they are a private company.
I know geeks are not big fashionistas, but but come on, check your facts, editors.
Google can solve this easily enough. They hire some smart people, so this should be just the kind of thing for them to do. What they do is add semantics to the searches. With semantics, each search term has a "meaning space", and searches will list not only the exact terms, but also others that have overlapping "meaning space". The ad searches would be implemented just the same way. Then all an adword buyer needs to do is buy generic words, and pay extra for the "meaning space" option. So when someone enters a brand name for a certain kind of product, that pulls in information about that company, and their types of products, and makes the connection. Google should also provide a button or input keyword to allow people to opt out of the "meaning space" connection. But otherwise, this is the kind of "smart search" Google should be doing.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Users don't pay Google, and Google is not in any way required to give them accurate results. If I search for Coke and get a link to penguins, that's annoying, but not a wrong-doing, since Google is under no obligate to its users.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yes, Google should be allowed to assist in the trademark infringement of other companies, but they get to keep control of their Google.fr domain?
There's no reason why the French government should have to take this kind of abuse.
You can't have it both ways, buddy.
It's pretty scary how ignorant the slashdot community has become about IP and copyright law. I expect more from this group.
I really hope this is just some Google bias, and not a majority of morons.
Does the billboard of the first competitor use the second competitor's logo and trademark in his billboard?
Or, if you go to competitor A, does he try and sell you a coounterfeit version of competitor B's car?
You suck.
http://www.google.fr/intl/fr/contact.html
Google France SARL
54-56 avenue Hoche
75008 Paris
France
Tél : 01 56 60 53 43
Fax : 01 53 01 08 15
france@google.com
Ban France from accessing Google.
Intelligence is a matter of opinion.
I think it puts Google in a bit of a dicey spot if that's akin to what they've been doing -- selling Pepsi advertising space on search results when a user specifically searches for "Coca-Cola". I'm nowhere near versed enough in trademark law (nor am I a lawyer) to know how that would be handled on this side of the ocean, though.
Require companies who want this for their trademarks to make a request of google.
So they get to eliminate competitors' ads.. but the catch is, they have to exclude their own site from appearing in the search results along with the other commercial sites.
...about handbags....someone light my virginia slim...
No, Moby Dick was just white. Ask anyone in America, that's pretty much a giant flashing "hate me" sign hanging above your head.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Given the obvious hyperbole/facetious nature of the grandparent, I think all you've successfully pointed out is that you have no sense of humor. That said, the characterization of all Frenchmen as "doing a lot of things right and having a wealth of experience to draw on" is itself a stereotype, which I assume is what you meant by "racist". Thanks for pointing out the blackness of the kettle, Mr. Pot.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
My impression is that you can not sell something of the same kind under a similar trademark. Google sold advertisements under the name of "Vuitton" - to some extend anyway. They did not sell handbags - they sold to some other company that their ad would show up when there was a search for the word "Vuitton". Wich means that they must have sold the word "Vuitton" in some way. It sure is not a handbag! So are they breaking Vuitton's trademark or not?
How dumb.
If you walk into a French store and say "Where is your Louis Vuitton stuff?" are they prohibited from saying "Here - but you might be insterested in these Dior items as well"...?
No, of course not.
According to this Dutch university site, the 1938 population of France was just under 42 million. According to this site French fatalities in WW2 were 810,000, which is roughly 2% (although that is fatalities only: presumably there were numerous non-fatal casualties of various kinds).
Alternatively, the Dutch site linked above gives the 1946 population of France as 40.3 million, which is a reduction of 1.6 million, or 3.9%, from the pre-war population.
Actually, I don't think that these figures do anything to undermine the parent poster's argument. It's very easy for people who have never experienced that kind of horror - and probably never will - to sit at their keyboards and decry the restriction of freedom of speech in France and Germany. Those restrictions don't exist for no reason, though. They're the result of profound national traumas way in excess of anything that any American - and even Brit (that would be me) - has had to endure in the last century or more.
All the same, the argument isn't really helped by wildly inaccurate statistics like that 70% figure.
what do you mean, "next?" :)
hawk