Friday, February 10th, 2006, 5:08 pm
Google and the Sponsored Links Controversy
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Trademarks bastardised
HERE is something about wealthy companies that simply begs for lawsuits. This story, which involves a complaint against Google, is nothing out of the ordinary. Dissatisfaction with the search engine giant has now emerged due to inclusion of competitive ads, which are said to violate trademarks.
The company behind US cash-advance firm Check ‘n Go has sued Google for selling its trademarks as keywords in search advertising, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Such sales do not breach Google’s own policy for the US and Canada.
Put in simple terms, when you search for a particular company or product name, you might have its competition among the sponsored links, which can be rather obtrusive. Some months ago, sponsored links started to appear ‘in-line’, i.e. enclosed in dividers among the search results. This serves the interest of the rivals that can simply pay to appear in page 1 of the results.
One wonders if a need for ad relevance is at all required. Trademark protection is a whole new matter. If there are no stern rules and policies, one could search for ‘linux’ and get Windows links in return; or search for ‘democrat party’ and get links to the Republican party, I suppose.
I used to have Microsoft’s anti-Linux propaganda show up in my Linux pages. It was courtesy of Google AdSense, to whom I rent some space. It was then that I blocked all advertisements that came from or pointed at msn.com or microsoft.com, so the trademark factor ought to come into play.
June 14th, 2006 at 4:24 am
Google and Microsoft : Ushering in the New World Order…one trojan horse at a time.