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.

Comments

Slashdot editors ordered to stop posting dupes

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Ruled a Trademark Infringer

Re:Slashdot editors ordered to stop posting dupes

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, it's Google. Dupes don't count.

Re:Slashdot editors ordered to stop posting dupes

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to show you the most relevant articles, we have omitted some articles very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the display with the duplicated results included.

And who

[JPelorat]

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?

Re:And who

[cybersaga]

The government doesn't enforce it. They just wait for someone to sue. It's like every other law.

Re:And who

[null etc.]

This is not suprising or unreasonable.

In which world do you live?

I find this highly unreasonable. Right now, it is permissible for Company A to advertise its products on a huge billboard right in front of Company B's building. Are you suggesting this practice be banned too?

A magazine has an article about Microsoft security. On the adjoining page is a full page advertisement for Red Hat Linux. Should that practice be banned too? Because that's done in nearly every major magazine.

Extend this theory a little farther. A user enters a search for "Mustang", and gets back a link to a website. The user clicks the website, and sees information and advertising regarding both Mustangs and Chevrolets. Is that permissible?

A trademark is just that - a mark under which a company performs trade. A company that owns a trademark is only entitled to protection that guarantees that no other company sells similar products or services under the same trademark.

I fail to see how this protection entitles the obstruction of a competitive free market, just to protect some company who can't compete on other fronts.

Re:And who

[paganizer]

Remember all the problems Yahoo had with france?
I think it makes more sense for any information company to block all french government IP's; If a bunch of idiots is going to continually harass and annoy you, don't deal with them.

Missing the point of the judgement

[jolyonr]

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

Re:Missing the point of the judgement

[jolyonr]

ps. My wife points out it's spelt Vuitton. And enough of my money has vanished in that direction that I really should know the spelling by now.

Re:Missing the point of the judgement

[nacturation]

They should go all out. Now when someone in France searches for Dior, they get only one result, Dior's site along with a note to contact their government to complain if they don't like it.

No jurisdiction

[ee_moss]

How would France have the jurisdiction to affect the way an American company operates?

Re:No jurisdiction

[Singletoned]

How would France have the jurisdiction to affect the way an American company operates?

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that the law will apply to Google's French subsidiary, Google.fr, rather than Google.com.

Re:No jurisdiction

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Actually they don't and this won't affect google at all. Google is after all one of the elite companies under the protection of America, World Police.

Re:No jurisdiction

[Not_Wiggins]

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that the law will apply to Google's French subsidiary, Google.fr, rather than Google.com.

While at first blush that might sound reasonable, it really doesn't have anything to do with jurisdiction.

For example, so long as Google's servers are hosted in the US, the only thing France could do is block their country from accessing Google's servers, and that isn't going to happen.

No, I think another well-informed reader hit it on the head: it would make sense to have a policy in place about competitors buying ad words that are the name of the competing company. But the only way that would work is to have the companies themselves police it (ie, do searches and see if someone else is potentially infringing with paid ads).

At that point it could be brought up in court, but it wouldn't need to involve Google at all; company A can just sue company B saying they're abusing copyrighted names yadda, yadda, yadda.

Re:No jurisdiction

[Have Blue]

There is a precedent for this- Yahoo was ordered by a French court to ban Nazi memorabilia from their auctions. These decisions only affect users within the jurisdiction of the law, so only users who can be verified as being in France will not see ads for competitors.

This will fly

[spidergoat2]

Till they figure out that someone typing 'Goodyear' won't be able to see a 'Michelin' ad....

Hmm....

[Misch]

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left?

Repeat!

Wouldn't you be more comfortable elsewhere?

[parvenu74]

Oddly enough, when I did a Google search for "French Riviera" I was offered ads for vacationing in Italy and Spain... touche!

Re:Give me a break!

[Peyna]

You missed the point entirely. Google is allowing someone to buy "Vuitton" as a search term, and then permitting their competition or "counterfeits" to be displayed when the trademarked term is searched.

This has nothing to do with generic search terms.

Let Google remove their listing entirely

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

Let Google completely remove the listing for Louis Vuitton or any other company that sued them from their search engine. Or, for that matter, all the websites of the French government, or even every .fr domain. After all, it's a private company, not a public utility. Despite that, they've become so ubiqitous that I suspect both France and the company's suing them would change their tune rather quickly...

Crow T. Trollbot

Google should pull out of France

[Quattro Vezina]

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.

Why is this different from...(realities of search)

[G4from128k]

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.

Re:Self-policing (was: Re:And who)

[arkanes]

I don't see whats unethical about this practice. It's called competition - it's not like they're picketing your business or something, they're creating a way for them to gain equal time in customer mindshare. More importantly, you're still ahead, because they're searching for *your* name, but your competitor has to pay to get his name out there. Trademark creep is just as annoying as all the other kinds of creep out there - it's supposed to ensure that you can do business under your mark without the risk of someone else masquerading as you. That's all, it's not supposed to be some sort of stick you can use to beat away competition.

Re:This is idiotic

[1u3hr]

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.)

Re:This is idiotic

[dabraun]

Except that as a consumer / web searcher when I search for "Louis Vuitton" (not that I have ever even heard of that brand) I *want* to see everything about it and everything like it.

Seeing ads that are for direct and relevant competitors when searching for a trademarked term makes web searches more useful. Ok, perhaps the trademark holder should always get the first result - but preventing me from seeing competitor's adds ... is just lame.

Next thing you know they are going to prevent sites that are critical of a brand from buying search terms - i.e. say some site has important dirt on Nike regarding child labor allegations - is it going to be illegal for that site to buy an adword to show up when someone searches for Nike?

Lame.

Re:Self-policing (was: Re:And who)

[Qzukk]

all the courts would have to do is respond to complaints - same way it works now.

At how many tens of thousands of dollars per complaint?

a bit unethical.

Ethical or not, its a near-impossible problem. Google would have to maintain a massive database of every potential competitor for every possible keyword. And then, if I search for "Anderson", whose ads are forbidden from showing up? Does the user want Anderson Accounting? Anderson Computers? Anderson Farms? Anderson Law Firm? Anderson & Samuel Law Firm? Anderson Anderson Anderson & Sons Law firm? You can bet if the wrong law firm showed up, they'd all be lined up to sue.

Targeting the wrong entity

[mintech]

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?

Simple solution

[delmoi]

1) block French people from using Google, blame government
2) Wait for people to overthrow said government
3) sell advertising indiscriminately, and profit.

Re:Self-policing (was: Re:And who)

[Moofie]

"How else are you supposed to make informed buying decisions?"

What on earth does making informed decisions have to do with advertising? Advertising is the polar opposite of encouraging people to make informed decisions. The purpose of advertising is to encourage people to make UNINFORMED decisions.

Re:I don't agree.

[Minna Kirai]

So, if I create a fast food restaurant called McDonalds, serving Big Macs and use all the same colors etc, you're okay with that?

As has already been explained, that would be performing trade under another company's mark, which is exactly (and only) what trademark should prevent.

But you want it to be illegal for me to tell my friend about a Burger King or Subway around the corner if he asks me where the nearest McDonalds is.