Company keyword Bidding - Competitor

Discussion in 'Legal Issues' started by xtreme fever, Apr 3, 2008.

  1. #1
    Hello,

    A competitor has keyword bids using our company name. This is illegal, right?
     
    xtreme fever, Apr 3, 2008 IP
  2. Thamelas

    Thamelas Peon

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    #2
    I don't see how. Its a free market. IMO you'll jsut have to out bid him. Now if he was an affiliate of yours you could require him to not do that or pull his ticket, but otherwise I don't think you have any grounds legally.
     
    Thamelas, Apr 3, 2008 IP
  3. xtreme fever

    xtreme fever Active Member

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    #3
    So if google would bid for keyword yahoo on another search engine, that would be ok?

     
    xtreme fever, Apr 3, 2008 IP
  4. e-made-china

    e-made-china Peon

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    #4
    It is just the internet and everything is just hard to definite. Just find some measures to protect your profit.
    www.china-seller.com
     
    e-made-china, Apr 3, 2008 IP
  5. xtreme fever

    xtreme fever Active Member

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    #5
    I got an answer from Google regarding this.
     
    xtreme fever, Apr 4, 2008 IP
  6. slinky

    slinky Banned

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    #6
    If your name is trademarked in some fashion you can write to Google and prevent them from bidding your your trade name. This is old case law. E.g. Coke cannot lawfully bid on Pepsi's trade name to divert traffic of people intending to go to Pepsi to the Coke web site. If your business name is "mywebsite" then it's another story and it's easy to see the reasons why.
     
    slinky, Apr 4, 2008 IP
  7. xtreme fever

    xtreme fever Active Member

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    #7
    From Google

    --
    As a courtesy, we are happy to investigate trademark complaints raised by
    trademark owners. To initiate an investigation, follow the trademark
    complaint steps outlined at
    http://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html.

    Please note, as stated on our trademark complaint procedure page at
    http://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html#1, we do not investigate
    keyword complaints for U.S. or Canadian trademarks. As a result, we will
    not be able to remove ads that are using your trademark as a keyword if
    your trademark right are in the U.S. and/or Canada.

    Our terms and conditions with advertisers prohibit intellectual property
    infringement by advertisers and make it clear that advertisers are
    responsible for both the keywords they choose to generate advertisements
    and the text that they choose to use in those advertisements on Google.
    You are more than welcome to contact advertisers directly to resolve any
    trademark disputes that you have.

    Trademarks and our search results:
    Our trademark complaint procedure applies only to the use of trademarks in
    ads, which are clearly marked as sponsored links on our results pages. We
    do not take action on objections to the use of trademarks in sites that
    appear in our search results. For any such objections, please contact the
    site owner directly.
    --

    Regarding this, we will be contacting the competitor site and ask them what's the deal.
     
    xtreme fever, Apr 5, 2008 IP
  8. slinky

    slinky Banned

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    #8
    I prevented a competitor from buying our name as an adword and using it to wrongfully redirect traffic. Take a look at the trademark complaint procedures in the URL you provided.
     
    slinky, Apr 5, 2008 IP