Google To Allow Trademark Use In Ads
In a unprecedented decision Google recently announced a change in its advertising policy which would allow advertisers to use trademarks of other companies in their ads under certain circumstances.
This marks a significant step as Google was sued earlier even though it was discouraging trademark violations.
Google’s Dan Friedman said in a blog post,”Under certain criteria, you can use trademark terms in your ad text in the U.S. even if you don’t own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it. This change will help you to create more narrowly targeted ad text that highlights your specific inventory.”
This action has already started a stir among trademark holders and some are even on the bandwagon to file suits against Google. Google till recently has been witnessing a flurry of trademark related lawsuits.
Google although in ToS agreement specifies that it won’t be liable for any damages occurring from abuse of trademark even then it cannot insulate itself from law suits.
Why is it bad for Trademark companies?
This would increase online advertising cost for the trademark company themselves as they would have to compete with many third parties while buying ad slots on Google even for their trademark keywords. Trademark keywords are important to advertisers because many searchers use them for navigational purposes. This holds true even for companies extensively spending on offline media to build an online base.
This would also abuse the market position of a company as other advertisers would be able to come up in search questioning the authoritarian position of the company.
For e.g a company selling software directly and through affiliate basis may have to compete with sites selling its software while a user search for the trademark keyword. Thus the company instead of making direct sell might end up with affiliate sell despite higher rankings.
Google has possibly resorted to this method due to Capping of Ad budgets and frequent complaints by advertisers for freedom while targeting users.Thus in this process advertiser would be able to save Ad dollars as they target a much refined audience.
For e.g For an advertiser earlier targeting keyword “cheapest shoes” can now target more specific keywords like “cheapest adidas shoes” thus avoiding meaningless clicks.
Although Google is also asserting that the use of Trademark keywords won’t be allow for sale of goods and services its abuse can’t be ignored.
This option of targeting trademark keywords is although limited to U.S traffic with certain conditions but may soon be launched in other countries unless boycotted by Trademark holders in a big way.
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