Travel industry not happy with Google AdWords policy changes: Teletext initiate legal proceedings against Directline Holidays
Well it had to happen sooner rather than later.
First of all Ian McCraig, the chief exec of Lastminute.com threatened Google with legal action over their recent decision to allow trademarked keyword bidding here in the UK.
Then Teletext holidays issue a legal threat against any travel company bidding on their brand name. And now Teletext start actual legal proceedings against Directline Holidays for doing exactly that.
Earlier this month, Google spoke to Travolution and stated that their new policy is legally sound.
Google said:
“We conducted a full legal and business review in the UK and Ireland before we made this change.”
“We are confident that our policy is compliant with UK & Irish law.”
So looks like we have interesting times ahead. A quick search on Google tonight for “teletext” shown only official teletext ads, so it looks as if a few people are being careful. Rightly so.
I’ll be watching this case with interest, if it goes to court and Teletext win they it will undoubtedly open the floodgates for thousands of other claims. After all, the sponsored search results are awash with companies bidding on their competitors names and trademarks. But is it legal? Well I’m not a lawyer so am not qualified to answer that question.
But one thing that does bother me is that Google are always banging on about giving users the search results they really want that are relevant and specific. Fine, so can somebody explain to me how a user searching for say “Thomas Cook” will find ads for rival travel agents relevant?? Surely the simple fact that I typed in the name of a well known travel agent/site means that’s what I am searching for?
Update: Just searched and looks like TravelSupermarket.com are trying their luck with Teletext!
Thanks to Chris for the tip on this story.
What I’m listening to right now: Ashanti Feat Nelly & Akon – “Body On Me”
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 am and is filed under Google AdWords. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:16 am
“so can somebody explain to me how a user searching for say “Thomas Cook” will find ads for rival travel agents relevant??”
I’ll explain it from a personal point of view. When I am looking for options on a product or service, I’ll often type in a brand that I already know so that I can find similar products or services. I do this when I’m in my consumer buying mode and would think lots of other people do the same.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:20 am
I think this is especially important where trademarked brand names are essentially the de facto term for a generic product. So in the UK anyone advertising vacuum cleaners could not use the term Hoover since it is a trademarked name.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 am
When I go to a supermarket I see an advert for Persil, when I get to the sector where the washing powders are I see Daz next to it….Daz does not say it is Persil…but sometimes when I went looking for Persil I actually meant any soap powder.
We are in talks with lots of suppliers at present about this and the noise we are hearing is thye will wait to see where the dust settles, but no one has yet mentioned going to court.
I suppose if you have lots of lawyers you have to keep them busy:)
Doug
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
That’s where we differ I reckon Doug. If I’m going shopping for Persil then I buy Persil
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I don’t agree with Google’s policy changes although I can see what Doug means, just not with his example of washing powders. Where brand names have almost become as common as the product name (using Marc’s example of Hoover vs vacuum cleaner) then you wouldn’t have to wait long for a customer in an electrics shop asking where the “hoovers” are.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
“Fine, so can somebody explain to me how a user searching for say “Thomas Cook” will find ads for rival travel agents relevant?? ”
Because they’re obvsiously looking for a holiday. So let’s offer them a list of other sites that offer holidays! That simple!
If they’re looking for thomas cook jobs then it doesn’t matter, even “thomas cook contact” wouldn’t be an issue!
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
So then if you managed to trademark Ukoffer.com (which I don’t think you can being so generic, but maybe) then anyone who bids on your term can get sued.
Sounds like it’s not just the big boys that can end up sueing to me. I myself have trademarks currently going through the process so I’ll be checking my search term with interest.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
IMO if consumers are looking for Thomas Cook then no-one else should be sitting on their brand. They didn’t search “holidays”, they searched Thomas Cook.
It’s pointed out time and time again in studies of browsing habits that many consumers search a company name rather than type in the domain name, very often in the actual browser bar. I use the internet every day and in most cases I’ll use the searchbox in my google toolbar to get to a domain as it’s a few keystrokes less than typing out a domain.
Where a TradeMark becomes a generic term is a different case entirely, as highlighted by Google’s own obsession with clamping down on “Google” becoming a verb and being unable to protect its TM status.
At a more personal level, if searching “Lee McCoy” on google returned a few SEO sites in the ads I think you wouldn’t be too happy about it?
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I just simply don’t understand how this can be legal. If I have a trademarked term (which I do) and someone puts it in an advert without my permission, then surely that’s not legal?!
May 30th, 2008 at 12:25 am
[...] be watching Teletext’s Trademark Trigger Legal Proceedings with extra [...]
June 4th, 2008 at 12:09 am
So you invest thousands/millions/billions in your company & your brand, building it up over decades. You protect your brand by applying a registered trademark to it, which is supposed to stop others taking advantage of the goodwill you’ve built. How can it be legal for a media owner to sell advertising on that brand name?
Even trademarked brands that become synonymous with a generic term have rights - they built that brand effectively enough for it to achieve that level of recognition.
Fine - if a Thomas Cook TV advertising campaign increases the searches for “holidays” and their competitors gain some benefit, that’s how it is. If a Thomas Cook advertising campaign generates more searches for “Thomas Cook” - sorry, can’t see how anyone else can have rights to that traffic.
“Google the web with Yahoo!” - when do we see those ads coming up?