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French Court Orders Google to Stop Competing Ad Displays

Posted by Zonk on from the advertising-showdown dept.

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.

6 of 630 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot editors ordered to stop posting dupes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google Ruled a Trademark Infringer

  2. Ruling only for LVMH by slashkitty · · Score: 3, Informative

    "The court ordered Google to stop displaying ads for competitors of Louis Vuitton" Don't worry, Google can still advertise competitors of other products.

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    -- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
  3. dilutions of grandeur by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

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    make install -not war

  4. Re:This is idiotic by 1u3hr · · Score: 4, Informative
    This is moronic. Who's to say who's a competitor?

    No, it's not about "competitors", it's about "trademarks". So it's very simple, the French court basically says ads (not searches) can't be targetted at trademarks of another company. So other luggage makers (and especially, those cloning Vuitton) can't pay for their ads to come up on a search for Vuitton. (Though they might turn up in the search results.)

  5. Re:Google bans ads that criticize cruise ships by SlayerofGods · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google bans all ads that criticize someone or something. It's company policiy that they only show ads for something never aginst.
    https://adwords.google.com/select/contentpolicy.ht ml
    "text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected) is not permitted. "

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    Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
  6. Google is already doing this by Vann_v2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.