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Has Google Met Its Match in Regards to Adwords?
© Cheryl Hodgson 2009 | Posted on May 14, 2009
The saga over Google Adwords continues…
I am sure most of you out there in the Internet world are aware of what Google Adwords are, but if not, here is your introduction. In essence, Google sells words which vary in price based on their popularity. For example, the word “trademark” = very expensive / the word “dirt” = not so much. Webmasters use these keywords to add them in their webpage metadata, which serve as crawlers to attract more Web surfers. Furthermore, these Adwords can appear on the search listing of a webpage so that whenever someone “Google’s” the word “trademark”, their website shows up among the first results. The more people that want to use a specific word will drive up the price for that word.
However, this auction-style affair with Internet search terms is running into problems when dealing with registered trademarks. A lot of people spend beaucoup amounts of money to federally register a word or phrase as a trademark. Would you like it if someone is then auctioning that word on the open Internet market? As they say in France – mais non!!! Check out our previous post on the issue!
Several cases have been filed in court against Google over their practice of selling Adwords, but guess what; Google is now a financial giant. Google in the past has waived their wand of money – and voila – the plaintiff runs away to enjoy their settlement fee on a beach on la plage de Cannes. Unfortunately, this has meant that the issue has never been definitively decided in court. Is it wrong to sell trademarked word or not? Je ne sais pas…
But ooh la la my friends, a potential class action suit is beginning to rear its ugly head. A sales process software company called Firepond is attempting to garner enough support to sue Google claiming that the Adwords system infringes their trademarks. If Firepond is able to attract other companies that feel threatened by the system, the whole legal process could be very costly for the Cupertino, California giant.
Will a class action suit finally tell us whether it is legally right or wrong to be selling registered trademarks for search engine use? Only time will tell…
Technorati Tags: AdWords, Brand, brand management, brand protection, Branding, class action, Firepond, Google, Intellectual Property, internet law, lawsuit, Legal, Marketing, trademark registration, Trademarks
5 Comments »
May 14th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
This type of thing has been going on for too long. Thanks for calling attention to someone attempting to fight it.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:57 am
This is very interesting. It shows how embryonic things still are within the Internet marketing arena. It shares some traits though, with the offline world, such as yellow page advertising that use trademarks in display ads. I would think it would be difficult for Google to do a trademark search for every keyword someone seeks to list under, and would ultimately increase the costs of online marketing. International eCommerce further complicates the issue. The legal terrain of the Internet is still largely a frontier, with trademark issues, international commerce, sales taxes, gambling, privacy policies, spam, fair use issues and other arenas that are evolving.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Love the way you’ve written in plain French, that even those us not so versed in the subject matter, can understand the impact of your very worthwhile and important mission. I commend you in your approach of integrity, fairness and total professionalism. I look forward to more – Thank you!
May 16th, 2009 at 8:04 am
As the owner of 10 + federal trademarks I would welcome the effort. With their technology they could easily exclude and/or flag protected brands. If they had an agreement of sorts with that brand then there would be a revenue sharing scenario. Otherwise, they could easily have a “do not call” list where those that don’t want gooogls money could register to be excluded. (I butchered their name on purpose to see how they like “brand abuse”.
Having said that, it seems like googals mo is as you’ve pointed out, throw money at the problem
after they have abused something.
Wouldn’t it be better for a company of that magnitude and influence to simply throw the money first, without the “in your face attitude”. That would uphold the basic principles of our laws instead of ruffling everybody’s feathers and causing negative stress.
This is such an obvious wrong but I noticed that we as “the people” need that someone to slap us awake and into action. Count me in and thanks for slapping me!
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
You are very welcome!!! And thank you for the amazing comments. It is very interesting to us to see how the newest case filed will pan out – and hopefully the question actually answered in court. Your comment is an interesting one Max – maybe Google could approach TM owners with a revenue sharing scheme, that way those that are affected at least get some compensation for their time and effort in registering a trademark. And believe me, getting a TM registered is A LOT of time and effort!!!!
Keep the great ideas coming!