Now you can bid on trademarked keywords

[RedEvo]

From May Google is changing it's policy on trademarked keywords and will allow anyone to bid on them.

Enjoy.

d

[Indizine]

but I read that you cant if its a protected trademarked word.

[RedEvo]

The weekend FT ran an article saying how Google has about faced and from May you can

d

[Mike Seddon]

Unusual shift for them.

They tend to want their customers to go where they are expecting to go when they click on a search result (relevency being their watch word for many years).

Personally I've not really seen the point on bidding on a competitors name as I would expect that the visitor is unliikely to do business with me once I get thme to my site if they were actually looking for the other guy.

The only time I think it makes sense is when people actually use a trade name when they are actually looking for a more generic product. (eg: typing MacDonalds when you'd actually be happy with most burger places).

[awebapart]

Thanks Dave for this news. I think it is important news and a big story.

I've had a good think about it, but not thought it through fully yet, and even I'm not quite sure what all the far-reaching repercussions of this will be yet.

Google are probably doing it to make more money (and save money on admin), but I'm not sure whether they have also done it to remove a can of worms (save money on admin), only to end up with an even bigger can of worms on their hands (e.g. one of many worst case scenarios is google getting financially involved, profiteering from adwords, with the illegal counterfeit trade). Other issues might revolve around licensing and celebrity endorsement.

In the past it has not just been a competitor trademark issue, but retailers who sell some supplier's goods have not been able to bid on some supplier's trademarks.

Here's a link to another article (no registration required).

[Alvin]

From May Google is changing it's policy on trademarked keywords and will allow anyone to bid on them.

Enjoy.

d

Very confused ,How can google sell someone else's trademark.?

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