Can physical person sue me if I run the Adwords campaing on him?

Hi!

I wanted to ask whether its possible to run the Adwords campaing on a person's name without his knowledge? So when somebody puts "john smith" in google then my ad appears. Can this person sue me for using his name? I understand that I cannot put any accusations in the ad or a target page. But let's say I could promote some page that is publicly available on the internet.

Thanks,

Janusz

 

I did that once, claiming fraud, and I'm still waiting for the papers from Costa Dedes.

 

You might want to go to http://www.score.org/ and ask one of the lawyers on there that question.

Adam

 

Office Depot slaps Staples over Google Ads

 

Well, that's a trademark issue. I know that I cannot have trademarks in ad text or keywords. But person name is different?

 

Thanks for the link. Except I am not from US so nobody will reply me

 

HAHAHA.

I miss him.

 

I doubt it's a trademark issue unless the person has a trademark on their name. you know how many "john smiths" or any other name there is?

 

If I may add a note: People in public office are often fair game in most countries. I could start a campaign with George Bush as the keyword and that would be acceptable use of his name.

 

I wouldn't do it, but that's me. I'm assuming it's a celebrity - famous people can have rights in their own image and name, you should look at a case awhile back where Vanna White sued Samsung for a robot parody ad about Wheel of Fortune:

http://www.markroesler.com/pdf/caselaw/White v. Samsung Electronics.pdf

 

I think it all depends. Is this person a public figure? Are you trying to commercially benefit off his name? Are you slandering the guy? You'd need to give more information about the nature of your use.