Blocking Adwords Activism Using Trademark Law

from the hardly-what-trademark-is-for dept

Lawsuits involving companies upset at competitors buying Google Adwords based on their names have been covered to death, with a variety of court rulings (some good, some awful) over the years. In part due to all this legal activity, Google has cut back on some of what's allowed -- specifically limiting the use of trademarked names from others within an ad if the trademark holder complains. This likely goes well beyond what the law requires. For example, trademark law has always allowed the use of competitive names for comparison purposes. That is, Pepsi can say: "compare Pepsi to Coca-Cola!" and it's not a violation of Coca-Cola's trademark. But, with Google's policy in place, Pepsi can't use that as an ad if Coca-Cola complains.

Unfortunately, that can make things tricky for activists trying to highlight activities by certain companies. Jim Harper points us to Chris Soghoian's detailed analysis of this situation, where AT&T has been able to block ads from AT&T critics, because they happen to use AT&T's name in their ads. That's pretty clearly an abuse of trademark law, as it was never intended for such things. Of course, Google, as a private company, is free to do whatever it wants, and in this case it's clearly trying to minimize lawsuits -- but it is a bit troubling that the end result of this policy is to allow trademark law to be misused to block activist speech.

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Is Emailing Professors About School Schedule Changes Spam?

from the whatever-you-don't-like-is-spam dept

One of the biggest problems with any kind of regulations concerning "spam" is that people define it very differently -- with the core definition tending to be "anything I don't like" which is rather difficult to reduce into written regulation. That problem seems to be cropping up at Michigan State, where a student is being disciplined for spamming the faculty. The student was upset about a plan to shorten the 2009 fall semester, and sent emails to 391 faculty members, alerting them to the planned change, and pointing out how it could impact their syllabi and schedules. Apparently one out of the 391 professors complained about this as spam, and the school notes that its rules say email to more than 30 people is considered spam (the actual policy seems to leave some wiggle room, but not much).

While you could see how professors would get annoyed if they were constantly bombarded by students supporting different causes asking for help, it's still difficult to see how this particular use of the email system really counts as spam. Some are pointing out that, since Michigan State is a public university, it needs to protect students' free speech rights -- and disciplining this student goes against those rights. Overall, the fear should be that this sort of disciplinary process acts as a hindrance to public participation among students. If actually trying to get out the word on an issue, by sending emails to the folks who are impacted, is likely to get them disciplined, then won't people start to think twice before even bothering? Is that the message Michigan State is trying to send to its students?

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Old Fogeyism Isn't That Surprising

from the kids-these-days dept

Last week Thomas Friedman penned a silly column claiming that Internet-based activism doesn't "count" as real political engagement. "Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual," he says. As various people have pointed out, this is complete nonsense. I engaged in some campus activism in college in the late 1990s, and I have trouble even imagining how students coordinated their activities in the pre-email days. Blogs have proven an incredibly potent force for rooting out and publicizing injustice. And I'm sure the technologies that have evolved since I graduated are just as valuable to campus activists. Obviously, online activism by itself doesn't accomplish anything, but by the same token neither do telephone calls or newspaper columns. Rather, these are all tools that activists can use to coordinate their activities more efficiently. Many of the people who sign up for candidates' Facebook groups do go to the candidates' rallies or volunteer for their campaigns.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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