its very easy

You sir, are a d*ckhead.

I hate to use that word just as much as I dislike people who cannot grasp the simple concept of decency when offering a counter-argument.

Eric Clemons didn’t deserve your vitriol.

Honestly, the rudeness that exudes out of people who hide under the mask of anonymity is shocking.

If I search for Louis Vuitton and Google knowingly gives me Gucci instead, Google may be found guilty of misusing LV’s trademark by misleading me to click on Gucci. If LV doesn’t come up at the top when someone searches for them on google that’s something completely different.

It really pisses me off to find that when I search for my company on Google a competitor has purchased the adwords. Maybe we should sue (:

You would also ban the competitor’s ad for these searches, even though that’s exactly what the searcher is hoping to find.

The day of the one word search is over. The long tail searches that are becoming the norm will use any term – not just trademarks – in many ways. To make law as if the search was for just one word would be plain stupid.

Beyond that, as time goes by, there will be even less truth in your assertion. In the relatively primitive world of 2009, I count as a relatively sophisticated user of search engines. As both the technology and user sophistication advance – and they will – people will get increasingly able to use trademarks to get at information somehow proximate to but not limited to the brand.
‘
To freeze the law based on how you assert people search in 2009 would foreclose those developments, thereby increasing the cost of finding information. That would be a bad thing for citizens and consumers.

To give trademark owners control over all use of their trademarks in sponsored ads to deal with fraud is an incredibly overbroad response. It’s like using Agent Orange to kill all the vegetation in the neighborhood instead of bending over to pick a weed. If fraud is an issue, use the many remedies addressed at fraud (including the trademark risk of confusion standard) instead of just limiting use of the trademark to those the trademark holder approves.

Again, this shouldn’t be just about the rights of the trademark holder. The ultimate issue is helping consumers and citizens get to accurate information in the most efficient way.

Touche my friend….

I think Eric misses the point – if consumers didn’t find what they wanted on Google then they wouldn’t use it. There’s a reason why it’s owning just about every market it’s in – it returns very relevant results. Although the sponsored listings aren’t perfect it’s still light years away from what used to be returned on earlier search engines.

What gives you the right to demand that a search engine must exist in the first place for you to search for anything that you want? What’s wrong with the phone book? See, this is the problem with anti-trust laws which is anti-property rights. Before Google came along, there was no such rights pre-existed. If you don’t like Google, then don’t use it. Google has no obligation to index everything on the net for you to search for. There are millions of things on the net that Google search doesn’t index at the moment, but does it mean that someone is searching for those non-existent topics on Google should file a complaint about Google not indexing them?

Think about it clearly. Can you answer that question? The law is wrong, pure and simple and it is not rocket science to see that the law is wrong. Google can selectively index the net if they want to. It is non of anyone’s business to demand them to index pages or contents that they wish not to. WHY? Because it is their inalienable rights to do so. The rights to property is not a rights granted by courts or by populism. It is an objective rights which is not something arbitrarily given/granted to someone. If you don’t understand this easy to understand concept of inalienable rights to one’s property, then perhaps you can go to the The Objective Standard site to do some serious readings regarding this right.

The wheels of justice move slowly, and a skilled evil corporation can delay the inevitable reckoning nearly indefinitely, while building up market share and value. The stock would go way up, at least for a few years.

And this really isn’t a Google issue, per say, as all of the major search engines do the same thing. Google just happens to have the deepest pockets, so people sue them first, and call them evil, and all of that.

All that said, despite the orangey-pink background, and the text that says “sponsored link,” I think that the ad that appears at the top of the search results might confuse consumers. It could appear like the top search result has been highlighted. (This is worse on Google than Yahoo! or MSN, since Google has fewer ads on top)

But, the ads off to the right should be fair game. They’re not mixed in with the search results, so there should be a lot less confusion for the consumer.

That being said, I’ve been in charge of Google programs before for vendors and have seen first hand just how Google has exploited company trademarks for profit, and I think Google should NOT allow competitors to bid on your trademark.

Because, I believe Gopogle’s use of trademarks is directly in opposition to the spirit of the laws. If someone google’s Pepsi, OBVIOUSLY they are looking for the Pepsi Web site. They aren’t looking for “colas”. It is not in the consumer’s interest to be potentially misdirected to other sites when the person is looking for Pepsi.

The exception: If someone is looking for places to buy Pepsi, then Pepsi could allow official affiliates to bid on the brand keyword in a “store”. This would be separate from general listings. This type of service would not only benefit the companies, but consumers. How many times have you googled a brand, been given store links, only to find that store doesn’t sell that brand??! Uggs are a great example.

Anyways, I think Google deserved to lose this case and I will be happy if the final judgment falls away from them.

If trademarks bidding is completely banned that wouldn’t be fair to consumers or competitors. I always see TV ads from GM talking about how much better their car is than a Honda. I know that it’s GM trying to stop me from buying a Honda and to hopefully buy a GM. It’s not misdirection, it’s “additional information” to my buying process. Let’s try this in the online world.

I type in “Honda Accord” and an ad from GM with the headline comes up saying “Better MPG than Accord?” Would that not be fair? I would love for that ad to come up while I’m searching for an Accord.

I think the only time when sites should not use a trademark is when they are outright pretending to be the trademark (i.e. similar urls as trademark and outright saying they are the trademark). I’m not sure this even happens nor have I ever seen it. It’s not like someone can say they are Nike Airs and than you purchase them and they send you Reeboks -such a company wouldn’t stay in business very long. Therefore in the end the “free market” system can regulate itself.

Google shouldn’t be taking Brand Y’s money to be in the search results for Brand X.

As an AdWords user, I’ve run into a blacklist of sorts when attempting to place an bid that used a company name, receiving a message that the term was forbidden. What’s unusual is that there seems to be so much variation in what people are experiencing when bidding on or reporting sponsored ads that contain trademarks (not to mention the shadiness when Google has scrubbed sponsored ads on particular trademarks in the city where a court case is ongoing).

Whenever I browse with some net newbie, he/she clicks on Google sponsored links. It is daylight robbery.

When they start to regulate how other companies and other individuals utilize search and content, and their decisions have the effect of boosting their bottom line, anti-trust issues need to be investigated.