We’ve seen Google testing a number of different display elements in AdWords over the last few weeks.
Store Ratings
Google is pulling store ratings from Google Products and displaying the aggregate rating inline with ads. Below are the display treatments for the top and right rail ads returned for a search for ‘grills’:

Condensed Site Links
Sitelinks within [...]

• 0 Comments

As expected, the European Court of Justice ruled today that Google is not liable for search ads purchased by competitors on search ads.
As it stands now, TM owners can prevent all ads from displaying on trademarked terms in most European countries. In the US anyone can purchase ads on trademarked terms, and many advertisers [...]

• 0 Comments

Marc Bitanga recently created a flowchart for Google’s Adwords Trademark policy. Although the flowchart doesn’t address affiliates, shopping engines, etc. it does do a great job of visualizing many of the common trademark complaint cases.
Also, although the graphic states that his flowchart is for the US, UK and CA, it only represents the US [...]

• 0 Comments

We’ve found a number of Google Places advertisements appearing on searches for ‘Brand + Product Category’ and include a link to a competitive local retailer. The advertisements represent an entirely new AdWords unit that we hadn’t seen before and seem to be designed specifically for Google Places. A handful of examples below:

A search for [...]

• 2 Comments

An adviser to the European Court of Justice just issued an opinion that “Google has not committed a trademark infringement by allowing advertisers to select [trademarked] keywords”.
While the opinion is non-binding, the court is generally expected to follow the opinion.
Google has moved to aggressively open up trademark bidding in the US, the UK and [...]

• 1 Comment

We’ve seen advertisements similar to the one below for “top-rated-coupons.com” appear in Yahoo search ads for a number of the programs that we monitor:

The ads are typically shown for “brand” + coupon searches. This particular advertiser isn’t an affiliate though. They are actually selling a mobile recurring billing scheme that gives “access” to [...]

• 0 Comments

Geno Prussakov has a great post on the AM Navigator blog about how recent changes to Google Suggest can help prevent trademark poaching.
The screenshot below demonstrates a new way to bring up advertisements using Google Suggest:

While Geno’s point is that:
From the above image, it is obvious that Google Suggest puts the original website on the [...]

• 1 Comment

In early July, the Rosetta Stone launched a lawsuit against Google for trademark infringement through its AdWords program.
These lawsuits are not new, a number of brands have sued Google over the years. Eric Goldman counts 9 similar lawsuits currently making their way through the legal system.
This lawsuit is notable from the prior suits in [...]

• 0 Comments

We’re excited to announce that PoachMark has officially launched. With over 200 affiliate programs monitored, we’re confident that PoachMark meets the robustness standards that we’ve established internally for this milestone.
PoachMark is now monitoring the affiliate programs of top 5 e-commerce merchants and top 5 Internet advertisers along with niche online retailers. We think Stephen [...]

• 0 Comments

Updated on May 21 to reflect Google’s worldwide trademark policy changes and recent moves in the US.

Google
Yahoo
Microsoft

Search Ads

Trademarks can be protected in:

—-Keywords used to trigger ads?
No (US/UK/JP + 190 countries)
Yes (FR, DE and most of Europe)
Yes
Yes

—-Ad text and title
No
No
No

—-Display URL
No
No
No

Type of protection:
All but resellers and informational sites
All but resellers [...]

• 1 Comment