American Airlines sues Google over keyword ads

[debra]

American Airlines sues Google;
"When a user performs a search on Google's site for the words "American Airlines" to search for flights on American, the user may be redirected to the Web site of a competing airline, a Web site that sells American Airlines travel services or the services of other airlines, or Web sites that have nothing to do with air travel at all, according to the lawsuit."............

"While other companies have filed similar lawsuits against Google, American is perhaps the largest company to do so, according to a blog post by Eric Goldman, assistant professor and director of the High Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University School of Law
"American Airlines apparently decided it was worth going to war over this issue and is prepared to pay the big bucks to litigate this case accordingly. If this lawsuit runs its course, I expect this to be a hard-fought and expensive lawsuit," Goldman wrote. "My working theory is that this was not a good lawsuit for American Airlines to bring."
Goldman questioned whether American has ever bought third-party trademarks as keywords. "I'd be surprised if American Airlines has run a completely clean shop," he said. "Finally, it's not in Google's nature to retaliate this way, but I wonder what would happen if Google decided to cut off keyword advertising for American Airlines."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136092-page,1/article.html

I wonder how this situation will turn out.

 

[Mike]

I'm hoping that AA has done their homework and evaluated the potential loss of revenue if Google "turns them off" vs. gaining anything through this lawsuit. The return on this entire thing may totally backfire. However, i think that someone had to stand up sooner or later and hopefully puts Google in their place. They've grown too big, too fast and are trying to rewrite some of the most essential rules of business.

IB

 

[Peter]

IntelBank.com this is certainly not the first time such a lawsuit has taken place:-

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/15/google_loses_adwords_trademark_case/
http://www.out-law.com/page-6627

I sincerely hope American Airlines have done their homework and found such cases before they waste their money. Google apparently offer the service of blocking trademarked keywords being used in the adverts.

 

[ApeXX]

I sincerely hope American Airlines have done their homework and found such cases before they waste their money. Google apparently offer the service of blocking trademarked keywords being used in the adverts.

Yeah I was wondering about that... When I tried to run a few advertisements awhile back I ran into problems with a TM name I was trying to use in an ad.

 

[Smiler]

Google got a lot of doe to throw around and they are the bridge between the company and consumers. Then again AA can go to another company such as yahoo.

 

[Peter]

Google got a lot of doe to throw around and they are the bridge between the company and consumers.

Unfortunately that seems to be the main cause of the lawsuits against both microsoft and google at the moment. No matter how baseless the claim is they go ahead with it regardless in the hope it will get settled and ending in the company receiving millions.

Then again AA can go to another company such as yahoo.

Not sure what you mean about this, the problem is not that they are competing with other companies for buying ads with their trademark, it is the fact other companies are using their trademark at all.

 

[Ronald Regging]

Imagine if you owned a company. Then when people search for your company they are led to your competitor's site, or to the site of one of your affiliates... So essentially your competitors are gaining business using your TM... Not only this, but the affiliates you are paying to bring business to your company, are in fact using your TM in order to get that business in the first place... All of this advertising is being sold by Google...

I don't think anyone can fault AA for being angry or claim that this lawsuit is baseless. You see this type of thing all over the place nowadays... From search engines to domain parking and everything in between. It's almost like the entire model of Internet monetization is built on screwing TM holders... I'm not a big sympathizer of corporations, but still, I see where they're coming from.

 

[connections]

deffiantly not the first case, here is a similar one -

ACCC alleges misleading and deceptive conduct by Trading Post and Google

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has instituted legal proceedings in the Federal Court, Sydney, against Trading Post Australia Pty Ltd, Google Inc, Google Ireland Limited and Google Australia Pty Ltd alleging misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to sponsored links that appeared on the Google website.

The ACCC is alleging that Trading Post contravened sections 52 and 53(d) of the Trade Practices Act 1974 in 2005 when the business names "Kloster Ford" and "Charlestown Toyota" appeared in the title of Google sponsored links to Trading Post's website. Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota are Newcastle car dealerships who compete against Trading Post in automotive sales.

The ACCC is also alleging that Google, by causing the Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota links to be published on its website, engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

Further, the ACCC is alleging that Google, by failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from "organic" search results, has engaged and continues to engage in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of section 52 of the Act.

The ACCC is seeking:

* declarations that Trading Post contravened sections 52 and 53(d) of the Act
* declarations that Google contravened section 52 of the Act
* injunctions restraining Trading Post from representing through sponsored links an association, sponsorship or affiliation with another business where one does not exist
* injunctions restraining Google from publishing sponsored links of advertisers representing an association, sponsorship or affiliation where one does not exist
* injunctions restraining Google from publishing search results that do not expressly distinguish advertisements from organic search results
* orders that Trading Post and Google implement trade practices compliance programs
* an order that Google publish a notice on its website outlining the above, and
* costs.

The matter has been listed for a directions hearing in the Federal Court, Sydney, on 21 August 2007 before Justice Allsop.

This is the first action of its type globally. Whilst Google has faced court action overseas, particularly in the United States, France and Belgium, this generally has been in relation to trademark use. Although the US anti-trust authority the Federal Trade Commission has examined similar issues, the ACCC understands that it is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Google's conduct from a trade practices perspective.

Release # MR 180/07
Issued: 12th July 2007