A company we have been developing a website for is having problems from one of her competitors regarding Google AdWords and I'm curious if this is legal or not. My client has a company called Acorn Property Management, trading as a sole traider. When searching for "acorn property management" in google one of the sponsored results is: Looking for Acorn Letting cmRENT are ARLA members and have lots of Quality Properties for Rent xwww.cmrent.com This could be taking clients away from her company and seems wrong. Does anyone know if she can do anything about this?
Currently, Google allows this and so do the courts. What they can't do is use her business name in their actual ad. Here is an article you can read for more info: http://www.bmighty.com/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218000006
So I take it that although her business name is Acorn Property Management and they are using Acorn Letting in their advert this is allowed. This really does seem pretty black hat and could take business away from my client.
Unfortunate situation. Legal advice is expensive. I suggest opening an adwords account. Placing bids for your own name, then asking your adwords rep to help stop the other ads from running. As long as Google is making money from someone, they likely rather do it from the actual company. Likely have to swallow some pride, but also likely less expensive than any other route.
I got a C&D letter from a company I was bidding on their trademarked term on adwords. The letter even told me to remove mispellings. I didnt have the name in the ad at all, I was just bidding on the term. Well I just said screw it and took it down because I was leaving for 6 months and didnt have time for a battle. But as far as I know they had no legal rights to do anything to me at all.
It may just be a matter of drafting a letter or having a lawyer prepare one asking them to remove the name from the ad and threatening legal action if they don't. A bluff legal threat may be enough to get them to stop.