Google's Ban of an Anti-MoveOn.org Ad

Whip-hero writes in with an Examiner.com story about Google's rejection of an ad critical of MoveOn.org. The story rehashes the controversy over MoveOn.org's ad that ran in the NYTimes on the first day of testimony of Gen. Petraeus's Senate testimony. The rejected ad was submitted on behalf of Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins — its text is reproduced in the article. The implication, which has been picked up by many blogs on the other side of the spectrum from MoveOn.org, is that Google acted out of political favoritism. Not so, says Google's policy counsel: Google's trademark policy allows any trademark holder to request that its marks not be used in ads; and MoveOn.org had made such a request.

Comments

Sooo....

[TheGreatHegemon]

Basically, a ad had a trademark on it, and the trademark owner asked for the ad to be removed? Not really big news...
It'll be news if they submitted an ad WITHOUT infringing on a trademark, and that was rejected.

Re:Sooo....

[tenchiken]

So what happens if the DNC, or RNC, which are after all political corporations and have their respective party named trademarked forbid Google from displaying any advertising that critiques them.

All of the paranoia, all of the rhetoric, all of te tin foil goes away once it's the other side being muzzled, instead of yours. More proof (as if any where needed) of the complete lack of principles from most of the political slashdot crew.

Re:Sooo....

[Scrameustache]

Basically, a ad had a trademark on it, and the trademark owner asked for the ad to be removed? Not really big news... Unless you spin it into free publicity for your candidate, that is.

"That damn liberal media, they're trying to silence a candidate! Lets vote for her out of spite!"

Re:Sooo....

[alan_dershowitz]

It'll be news if they submitted an ad WITHOUT infringing on a trademark, and that was rejected.

Did you read the article, that's what happened! According to the article's quoted intellectual property expert:

Ronald Coleman, a lawyer and leading expert on online intellectual property disputes, noted that, as a private company, Google has the right to treat different advertisers differently.

But he called Google's removal of the Collins ads "troubling." Coleman says that there is no such requirement under trademark law and that Google appears to be selectively enforcing its policy.

"In a recent ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the notion that there is anything like a cause of action under the Lanham Act, the statue governing trademark law in the United States, for so-called 'trademark disparagement,' " Coleman said. The courts have also rejected the notion that the use of a trademark as a search term is a "legally cognizable use" as a trademark use under federal trademark law, he added. Coleman is also general counsel for the Media Bloggers Association. I think it's bullshit that some people think it's a trademark violation to refer to an organization by name while criticizing it. How could you criticize any company then? It would mean trademark law trumps the first amendment.

Re:Sooo....

[Khaed]

"There's this company, called... Okay, there's a company that makes an operating system most people use. It's named after a set of glass panes placed in your wall to allow you to see outside. The company... they're called... a word for very small and the opposite of hard. And, see..."

Re:Sooo....

[Pantero Blanco]

Trademarks aren't copyrights, there is no "fair use clause".

No, Trademark Law also has a fair use doctrine, which includes using trademarks nominatively. Otherwise you'd see Coke and Pepsi suing each other whenever one of them put out an ad comparing the two.

Beyond that, Google never said they were doing it to comply with laws. They are probably doing it as a professional courtesy. If somebody wanted to put an "ad" up that slammed freerepublic, and freerepublic asked Google not to, then Google would give them the same consideration.

The article mentions anti-Blackwater and anti-Exxon ads as being "permitted" by Google, but it doesn't say whether or not the companies have requested takedowns.

Either way, if their trademark use policy doesn't allow for nominative use, it's faulty and needs to be fixed. Plenty of companies run comparative ads (our product versus Competitor X's product), which generally require the other company to be identified.

Re:Sooo....

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be clear that we, the citizens of America (and the world for that matter), are being played off each other.

We're being played. Used by the wealthy and powerful, tricked into fighting over false grievances while the elites literally get away with murder.

Take a glance at TV any time, and you'll see ludicrous BS like "Hannity" and "Colmes." I put the names in quotes because they aren't real people; they are characters. Each is a bumbling caricature of what the opposite political party is supposed to look like. Republicans are supposed to hate the Colmes character, and Democrats are supposed to hate the Hannity character. In reality, neither character says anything reasonable nor worthwhile -- they are purely scripted to trigger the hate-phrases of their respective goading target.

This is just a single example, but when you start to look around you, you notice that almost everything in high-level politics works this way. There are a few exceptions among politicians, but they rarely get elected because they don't play along. Without accepting bribes from wealthy donors, a politician can't afford the ad spots needed to gain popular recognition. Likewise, there are a few exceptions in mainstream media, but they don't last long if they disrupt the flow of advertising money or if they offend their wealthy owners.

Why are we being played?

When we think that our enemies are our neighbors, we will not stand up to the megacorporations fleecing us, and their sycophants in Congress who pass laws to help them steal our money (in return for a small portion of it themselves). We'll quibble among ourselves while they get away with whatever they like. No, the wealthy and powerful aren't concertedly working together against us -- but they're much closer to each other than they are to the teeming masses far below them. They all benefit when we are their slave labor.

We end up supporting the court jester who appears to most closely support our views. In truth, the jesters are all just playing their parts, and they'll all get paid well at the end of the night. We, the paying audience, don't seem to realize it's just a show.

Re:Sooo....

[sumdumass]

Well, I don't think this is a google problem as much as a move on problem. But Google has turned the blind eye on tradmarks in the past too. They ended up going to court over the wallmartsucks site or whatever and has had issue with returning search results with trademarks in them. They totally ignored them. And the first instance that we are made aware of where google turns down an ad because of trademarks happens to be political speech in response to a groups underhanded tactics and as some would say, flat out lies about a member of the united states armed forces.

Now google's tough break in the situation being what it is when they enforced the policy isn't as important then what Moveon.org claims to be and what they did. It is obvious that the use of the trademark was fair and legal, and it is obvious that it was over political speech. Now, anyone at google could have said, wait, what is this? and looked at the policy, the ad, and made the decision over the merits of the case. Some people tend to think they actually did that and made the decision to pull the ad.

But what my real problem is about, is all the responses that act like there is nothing wrong with squashing political speech in this way. The entire sarcasm I put in there was the exact same arguments made over the ban on flag burning that pissed everyone off. I was attempting to outrage people with those comments but it seems as if they are acceptable now. For some reasons, the majority of people don't seem to care when it works out to benefit a side they like. And I think that is completely wrong. Either free speech means something or it doesn't. And yes, in almost every other media outlet, there are special rules concerning political speech that force it to be carried. These rules even force the lowest rate for the slot to be charged. So expecting Google to keep an ad up isn't to far of a stretch. I just hope their actions doesn't create a storm of laws governing advertisements over the interweb.

I guess It would be funny to see hillary2008.com or whatever forced to advertise or carry a banner ad for rudy or barak. But if you ask me, I am disappointed all around, Once for google pulling the ad, regardless of their policy, once again for moveon.org's hand in it, and probably mostly by the lack of outrage when it effect the "other side" of the issue. And that makes you wonder if all the other outragfe isn't just some sort of way to impose a political idea instead of something we should truly be outraged over. Political speech should be something on top of the list.

Re:Sooo....

[Glock27]

The original article is very very wrong.

It's just a trademark case. If the RNC told google to block any ads with the text 'republican national congress' in them, and they held a trademark for such, then Google would do so.

What a fool.

I can't think of any better way to eliminate political discourse than this. Every political entity should just trademark its name, and it can suppress any type of critical political ad. George Bush(tm). BS.

Trademarks were developed to eliminate brand confusion among commercial entities. They shouldn't be applicable to political entities. Use of any political organizations name should be fine on First Amendment grounds.

Google needs to start walking the 'do no evil' walk. It's not right for one of the world's biggest media companies to suppress protected political speech with which it disagrees.

This is retarded.

[Silverlancer]

This was on Fark the other day, and between the usual conservative and liberal bashing and flaming, it became quite obvious that this was a non-story:

An organization saw their trademark being used without their permission in an advertisement, and asked that it be taken down.

If this was Microsoft running an ad that said "Ubuntu Linux promotes terrorism," and Ubuntu asked Google to remove it, would you get all angry about how evil Ubuntu and Google are?

Re:This is retarded.

[Khaed]

If this was Microsoft running an ad that said "Ubuntu Linux promotes terrorism," and Ubuntu asked Google to remove it, would you get all angry about how evil Ubuntu and Google are?

Outright defamation is not the same as criticism. Microsoft could and would get sued for that ad, and Google could get sued for it, too.

MoveOn made a political ad criticizing a person by name -- so does that mean it'd be okay to criticize those in MoveOn responsible for the ad, by name, in a rival ad? This is a political thing, and Petraeus, MoveOn is a public figure -- they're fair game in the political world.

Well

[El Lobo]

No matter what the causes of the ban are , it's frightening what the power of an (almost) full monopoly on internet seaching services can do. Google is today the number one searching enginw on the internet. It's SO used that "to google" has replaced the verb "to search"... so if Google bans something or have favoritisms for something, this, no matter waht, will have SERIOUS implications for the involved parts. Funny how the powers than be concentrate on the infamious "MS monopoly (whatever that is) and close their eyes on the more serious Google issue.

Re:What about the other ads with trademarks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like it. Pity the author of the article couldn't have actually dug a little deeper and asked Google whether or not this was the case, but I suppose today's journalist never wants to allow clarification to get in the way of controversy.

Re:Al Gore on the board

[NoodleSlayer]

If that was true, it might be worth noting. But it's not:

http://investor.google.com/board.html

Both Gore and Schmidt are on Apple's board of directors however: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/bod.html

Just because you're accusing the search tool of partisan hackery doesn't mean it should stop you before making your own partisan hacked up assaults. Not to mention that Al Gore isn't even involved in this case.

Re:using a trademark infringing a trademark

[hedwards]

Except in this case the ad was using the trademark MoveOn.org for the purpose of selling the oposition. It would be legitimate if it was a blog entry talking about the issue. But in this case, the trademark was being misappropriated to directly link to an opposition campaign page.

The whole power of the ad was derived from the the trademarke MoveOn.org, if you read it with a generic liberal replaced, it just doesn't have the same impact. And that is why ultimately it was a legitimate request.

The group itself has a name which is likely in violation of trademark protections. As much as I would love for somebody to put MoveOn.org in their place, this was a legitimate move on the part of Google to try and protect a trademark.

the court says:

[Scrameustache]

There are many examples of using another's trademark in an ad that do not amount to trademark infringement. The nominative use exception allows use of another's trademark to refer to the trademark owner's product or the trademark owner itself Google was sued over trademarks used as adSense triggers: "Defendant's internal use of plaintiff's trademark trigger sponsored links is not a use of a trademark...because there is no allegation that defendant places plaintiff's trademarks on any goods, containers, displays, or advertisements , or that its internal use is visible to the public."

Therefore, Google's policy is When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we only investigate the use of the trademark in ad text. If the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademark and prevent them from using it in ad text in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint.

Their position is the only one that will increase shareholder value.

Was the original ad all that offensive?

[moosesocks]

I know this is slightly OT, but I'd like to see some sort of reasoned debate over it here...

What exactly was so offensive about MoveOn.org's ad campaign in the first place?

Petraeus has handled the Iraq war poorly, and in several cases lied outright to the American people. MoveOn.org called him out on it. Isn't that how democratic politics and free speech are supposed to work?

It's no secret that many Americans feel that the government misled the general public in order to bolster support for their war, and the ad was a simple reflection of this reality. It wasn't even a baseless personal attack -- they provide quotations, and even cite their sources.

Perhaps the most troubling part of the whole saga is that the house passed a resolution condemning the advert 341-79, and the senate 71-29 (With all 49 republicans, and 22 democrats voting in favor). The president even got in on the action.

This Time editorial seems to have the best summation of the whole situation.

Is this all the legislative branch is good for these days? Sternly wagging their fingers at political action groups, and listening to baseball testimony?