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1.  

   

   Griff (profile), Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 1:53am

   
   

   An analogy

   M&S have a posh food shop in a part of town. A known UK brand.
   People go there to buy food.
   Someone else spots this and builds a competing food shop in the same part of town.
   
   M&S object, saying "they came here looking for M&S and now you're trying to lure away our customers".
   
   Isn't that what L'Oreal are basically saying when someone advertises competing products next to the L'Oreal keyword ?

    

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2.  

   

   Rabbit80, Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 3:43am

   
   

   There are occasions where there are infringements that are confusing on Googles sponsored links.. For example try a search for Spybot Search and Destroy... the top sponsored links are not to the correct, free and spyware free program (hosted at safer-networking.org) but to spyware ridden scams that people have to pay for. I know many people who have been caught out by this and do not realise that they have downloaded the incorrect software! These ads are clearly (to me at least) infringing the SpyBot Search And Destroy trademark!

    

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3.  

   

   ..., Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 5:17am

   
   

   Re:

   and this somehow the fault of google?

    

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4.  

   

   TheJadedTech, Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 6:28am

   
   

   And the shift hits the fan.....

   So now companies are so badly managed, as to not withstand a downturn in the economy, they turn to crying desperate pleas of 'they are walking on our lawn!' so that noone else can possibly sell anything that even hints at competition. Where will it stop? With Loreal now sue Sears for having a Britnay Spears perfume sitting on the shelf next to it because 'people may buy the OTHER perform because it's trying to be like Loreal'? No different in the digital world. This is simple a shift in mentality and what, used to be called, an open market is. With searches and ads being built on keywords, how does this differ than any other advertising campaign? Maybe I should start a company called "Advertising Campaign" and sue anyone who ever uses those two words in their corporate documentation? Are people so confused that they actually believe that competition never, ever uses another company's product to promote their own? How soon people forget their history lesson (http://legacy.lclark.edu/~nilsen/whitelaw.html). But companies will do anything to get more advertising for free I suppose....

    

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5.  

   

   Nickolass Jensen, Sep 30th, 2009 @ 2:55pm

   
   

   Does consumers really know how sponsored links work?

   Hi there. I found this post when searching twitter for comments on this case. I am a search marketer from Norway who has the same issues on my mind. One of my new clients has an established trademark wich seems to be used by competitors in Google Adwords. I was wonderering how and if we could stop that. Therefore I am following this case. Before making my own - perhaps, on behalf of my client.
   
   Some of the articles that has been posted about the latest "opinion" - wich is not a "verdict", mentions that, and I quote "Part of the court’s reasoning is that modern consumers are sophisticated enough to understand how ’sponsored links’ work".
   This is, in my opinion, plain rubbish! Where do they get this from. Tell them to document this point.
   In some segments (especially the older segments) more than 50% of the users doesn’t now the difference between sponsored links and organic results.
   
   I’d like to see some more good reasons than this. Otherwise this will be disputed.

    

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6.  

   

   in-exfixtures, Oct 8th, 2009 @ 4:31am

   
   

   The big fish

   The big fish will always eat up the small fish and it will never stop. Only God can help the small fish.

    

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7.  

   

   in-exfixtures, Oct 8th, 2009 @ 4:42am

   
   

   the big fish

   The big fish will always eat up the small fish and it will never stop. Only God can help the small fish.

    

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8.  

   

   senior, Oct 21st, 2009 @ 8:57am

   
   

   the big fish

   Right now my company has been taken by another company who has been advertising in my company name, using my address and my telephone number. I cannot do anything about it. Leave a comment.

    

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9.  

   

   mr smith, Oct 23rd, 2009 @ 2:30am

   
   

   Where is the Justice?

   In 2002, my wife and I, formed our own businesse's. In 2006 we commenced trading with another organisation whom used our company data (Business name, address and contact numbers) enable to divert customers to themselvers. Having reported this to our local police station,we were told "they could not do anything about this".
   
   Is this not a criminal matter?.......Misleading the public into believing they are someone whom they're not.
   
   This particular organisation are bounded to the "Data Protection Act".

    

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