Since June 15th 2009, Google is allowing advertisers not only to bid on Trademarked keywords, but also to allow them in the ad text itself.
Since June 15th 2009, Google is allowing advertisers not only to bid on Trademarked keywords, but also to allow them in the ad text itself.
For many years, Google AdWords advertisers have been able to bid on keywords which were trademarked terms owned by well-known brands.
This has been a highly contentious issue with many court cases along the way.
We read of another recent one on July 10, with Rosetta Stone suing Google for trademark infringement.
So why has Google recently relaxed its trademark policy to allow advertisers (in the USA) to include keywords not only in their lists but in their ad texts as well?
As with everything they do, Google believes that this is in the interests of the users, who now benefit from a wider range of choices when looking for goods and services online.
Unless I am “married” to the brand I am looking for, I am usually going to be interested in alternative products from other suppliers — and I’m probably not alone in that.
So when I’m looking in the search results I’m interested in seeing more than just categories of products, but also actual products and others I might be interested to learn more about.
Restricting advertisers from talking about specific brands is not in the user’s best interests as he wants to make an informed decision about all the alternatives.
So I believe that only “insecure” brands need have anything to worry about.
And also, if I’m an authorised reseller of the products and services, why should I not be able to specifically advertise them on the trademark owner’s behalf — don’t they get more sales that way?