Google To Be Sued in UK For Trademark-Linked Ads

nuke-alwin writes "Channel 4 news in the UK is reporting that Google will be sued by Lastminute.com for the way it sells advertising. Adverts from competitors will now be displayed when searching for some trademarks. Google says consumers will benefit. Some trademarks become so familiar that all similar products are known by the trademark name: Coke and Hoover, for example. I think searching for these kinds of words should allow competitors to advertise their similar products."

Comments

Re:they better sue the phone book companies as wel

[rsidd]

That's not the point. The point is the phone book calls them plumbers; it doesn't list them under a brand name (like whatever the equivalent is for Tesco's in plumbing.) Tesco would have no case if a Google search for "supermarkets" threw up ads for non-Tesco supermarkets. What they object to is a customer searching for "Tesco" and being advertised something else. Whether their objection is valid is a matter of debate but there's no analogy with the phone book.

Re:Coke and Hoover?

[temcat]

In Russian, "kseroks" is vastly more popular as a general term than "kopir." There is a verb "kserit'" which means "to copy on a copier" :-) There is even an adjective "kserokopirovalny" meaning "related to copying on a copier."

Re:Abuse of what trademarks are for...

[funkatron]

Of course it's ok. Google can produce whatever results they want. Just because a company has spent a lot of money doesn't mean they're owed anything.

Re:Abuse of what trademarks are for...

[TheRaven64]

There are two cases here. One is that you search for a product and get adverts for competitors products. This seems absolutely fine to me. The other is that you get a product and get an advert which appears to be someone selling this product but is, in fact, a competitor (or something completely unrelated). This is absolutely not fine, and is something I have experienced with Google search results several times in the past. Had I been the owner of the trademark, I would have been obliged to sue Google (and probably eBay, who is responsible for many of these) or risk losing the trademark.