Your Competitors Can Use Your Trademark in Adwords
As of May 2009, Google has announced a major change in trademark policy.
Google has decided that it will no longer police trademark usage for Adwords. So previously, owners of trademarks could use Google to ensure that unauthorised advertisers could not use trademarks as their keywords or in the ad text.
This is no longer the case.
The implications of the policy change is wide ranging and companies must be aware of the risk associated with this. The main risk is that now smart online advertisers can use strong brands and in particular awareness built through offline campaigns to drive traffic to their own sites and away from the sites of the trademark owners.
For example: MAS can place an ad like “Cheaper Than AirAsia” using the “airasia” keyword.
Although Google’s policy allows an advertiser to use a mark doesn’t mean the law allows it. It does mean that policing of trademarks will fall back onto the shoulders of the mark owners and unless they have an army dedicated to the project it may be an exercise in futility.
So what can trademark owners do?
To stop these guerilla tactics by their competitors and in some cases their agents, trademark owners MUST have adwords campaigns. They must create their own presence within Adwords or risk have their strong brands giving exposure to their competitors.
