I find this shocking. I open Google and type in my company name - what comes up in the sponsored links at the side? take a look for yourselves:

Ikhost Web Hosting
Host 6 domains on 1 account,
200GB web space, 2000GB Bandwidth
www.BlueHost.com

So I thought okay weird, may be some weird glitch - so I try another provider that I know of:

Vexxhost Web Hosting
Bluehost Reliable Web Hosting,
200GB web space, 2000GB Bandwidth.
www.BlueHost.com

This is unacceptable that a company is stealing the names of others for advertising purposes.

I'm sure many of you would agree, but I was wondering what the thoughts of others are on this. Does anyone know how to stop this sort of thing going on?

Start clicking on the ad - make it unprofitable

Welcome to old news, here is bunch of resellers from cj.com using our company names at Adwords for years... Nothing you can do about, unless you want to waste your time and money to sue them.

Welcome to old news, here is bunch of resellers from cj.com using our company names at Adwords for years... Nothing you can do about, unless you want to waste your time and money to sue them.

Actually, google will quite promptly remove them with any notice filed to their abuse/support team. They'll also go quite a bit further if it persists.

Both bluehost and lypha have our name targeted, but I can't say it bothers me too much anymore. I was however a bit surprised to see bluehost actually advertise our name in their ad title, as if we're somehow affiliated with them (which we're not - never have been, never would be).

But, what I've come to realize is this: people who want cheap webhosting (and I don't just mean cheap in terms of the price) are going to purchase just that, so I doubt they're getting many people, if any, that would have signed up with us anyway. Besides, I've read their reviews on here and had the pleasure of taking calls from their customers :-) I think I'll leave it at that.

Don't let it get to you. Continue to be the best at what you do and you'll have your own loyal customer base. :)

They don't have any ads with your name in the title. The title of their ad is set to

{keyword} Web Hosting

Google automatically inserts the keyword the user searched with. And unless your name is trademarked you'll have a tough time getting Google to disable their keyword bids.

I'll be the first to admit I don't understand Google's AdWords very well. When searching for my company, I see 2 hosts' ads appear - 1 with our name, and 1 without. I don't get why 1 has never shown our name, but the other always has, especially considering there is only 1 word in the search term.

edit: I think I see what you're saying. The companies who advertise select keywords to use, and when those terms are searched for, the keyword appears in the ad title. It's not that they directly purchased an ad with the company name, but an ad that would place the keyword in the title. The end result is still exactly the same, so it's really no different either way.

I've seen this happen quite a bit and just recommend to click on the ad every now and then ;)

Do note that it might not be BlueHost.com who purchased these Google ads!! With AdWords you can send the visitor to a different URL than the one displayed in the ads, and many affiliates use this to pretend the ads are from the hosts themselves.

Now go back to Google, search for your business name again, right click on the ads, select "Copy Link Location" (assuming you are using Firefox), and then paste into notepad for the Google AdWords tracking URL.

The actual URL AdWords will redirect to is after the "q=" parameter -- which is NOT BlueHost.com. Actually if you try to visit that URL, it will redirect you to a Commission Junction tracking site first, and then redirect again to BlueHost.com. It is basically someone trying to buy cheap traffic from Google search result, and hoping to convert them into affiliation sales...

Clicking on the ads? By all means! I don't think it will cost BlueHost any money, but it might hurt those who try to game the system.

That's pretty interesting. It looks like google will be getting a letter from me.
http://www.page-zone.com/trademark.jpg

The odd thing is if you type the search term along WITH "web hosting" nothing comes up. Just type the company name and they use it for an ad for another company. What did google's motto USED to be?

I've filled a complaint this morning with google.
The lyphia thing you can't do much about, but I believe it is unaceptable that bluehost uses our company name in their advertisements. I believe it's both false advertising, and in a lot of cases trademark infridgments.

Bluehost has a history of search engine cheating IMO. It wasn't too long ago I discovered what appears to be them creating doorway pages w/ content from other hosting companies and meta refresh code to their site.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=544666

Interesting, if you look at the source you will see:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=L&ai=BisvSifr_ReumD5icgAKglPSxAYyV5Bi8_e_8AZ220KcBwJoMEAIYAigCOABQs_yv1Pv_____AWD9kISB3AOYAfCGAZgBqZcDmAG4kgaYAbuSBpgBvpIGyAEB&num=2&q=http://www.hosting-review-center.com/webhosting/hosting.aspx&usg=__PFkR45PEDOH1B9MtxjRDIuPyftA=

Looks like an affiliate payout scheme of some sort... and a fair amount of hosting companies are being used in the process.

It appears that it is in fact being propagated by hosting-review-center.com and isn't bluehost directly.

Time for some takedown notices -- they've even been advertising under my measly 'ol name.
Please note that hosting-review-center.com is also hosted at GoDaddy, wouldn't hurt to send some abuse notices to GoDaddy (albeit not sure what to file them under other than trademark infringement) as they like to play internet police.

At any rate if google allows this sort of crap to persist indefinitely I'm going to switch to live.com just to spite them :) Overall it's a better site anyways.

Yes this stuff happens all the time :-((
It is annoying though when co. purposely USE your own co. name AS the keyword.
I just checked hostcaters and see: icheaphosting.com as well as bluehost.
Errrr!!

Hostnine.com Web Hosting
Host 6 domains on 1 account,
200GB web space, 2000GB Bandwidth
www.BlueHost.com

Pathetic... I mean aren't all of the fake hosting directories you guys run good enough?

Hmm..same for us as well.
A search on "instelink" and "iisnet networks" on google both yield Bluehost ads.

- Jason

They don't have any ads with your name in the title. The title of their ad is set to

{keyword} Web Hosting

Google automatically inserts the keyword the user searched with. And unless your name is trademarked you'll have a tough time getting Google to disable their keyword bids.
Did no one here read the above quote? These companies aren't 'stealing your company names'. It's just that Google is inserting any search term into the string above and displaying it as the ad. You could likely find really obscure ads by using obscure search terms that I assure you the company did not specify.

It makes sense for them to do this as Google's advertising is PPC. They put as many ads out there as they can, since they're only paying when someone clicks.

Filing a suit against Google won't do a thing except waste your money. I would stop worrying about things like this and wasting your time when you could be improving your business.

Same problem here..

Search for InnoHosting, and you get:

Cheap Web Hosting - $6.95
1TB Storage, 2TB Data Transfer
The World's Biggest Hosting Account
www.lypha.com

Discount Colocation
$49.95 Colocation, Remote Reboots
100MB, 1000GB, Free Control Panel
www.colostore.com

Innohosting Web Hosting
200GB, 2000GB transfer, host 6
Domains, from just 6.95$/month.
www.BlueHost.com

Bothers me slightly, I'll consider asking Google to remove it..

I have seen hostrocket and startlogic showing up for "Voxtreme" however today it is hostrocket and bluehost.

Host Rocket - $9.95 month
Low Price Web Hosting. PHP, MySQL,
1GB Raid Space & 50GB Transfer. Aff
www.hostrocket.com

Voxtreme Web Hosting
200GB, 2000GB transfer, host 6
Domains on 1 account, from 6.95$/mo
www.Bluehost.com

I just went through a few of the above names and saw no ads on google, maybe they have done something about it.

I've filled a complaint this morning with google.
The lyphia thing you can't do much about, but I believe it is unaceptable that bluehost uses our company name in their advertisements. I believe it's both false advertising, and in a lot of cases trademark infridgments.

Me too. I also asked them to inform me on how long they've been doing it so I can total up an estimate of damages. It'll be interesting to see what they respond with.

Did no one here read the above quote? These companies aren't 'stealing your company names'. It's just that Google is inserting any search term into the string above and displaying it as the ad. You could likely find really obscure ads by using obscure search terms that I assure you the company did not specify.



Humm, well Im talking about the "Sponsored Links" area. Im not currently using them but if I recall correctly you create your own TITLE for those sponsored links. Oh well. I can even understand the first example below as it just says cheap web hosting, BUT the other 2, strictly have the name only - hostcaters
This seems to be the beef with all of us:

Sponsored Links

Cheap Web Hosting - $6.95
1TB Storage, 2TB Data Transfer
The World's Biggest Hosting Account
www.lypha.com

Hostcaters
Review the most cost-effective
web hosting providers here.
www.iCheapHosting.com

Hostcaters Web Hosting
Bluehost Reliable Web Hosting,
200GB web space, 2000GB Bandwidth.
www.BlueHost.com

At any rate if google allows this sort of crap to persist indefinitely I'm going to switch to live.com just to spite them :) Overall it's a better site anyways.
70-80% of search engine users would disagree with you (including myself). ;-)

I am pretty sure that google is just entering in the name in, but I searched for my hosting companies name with web hosting after it and have not seen any ads from bluehost yet.

Did no one here read the above quote? These companies aren't 'stealing your company names'. It's just that Google is inserting any search term into the string above and displaying it as the ad. You could likely find really obscure ads by using obscure search terms that I assure you the company did not specify.

It makes sense for them to do this as Google's advertising is PPC. They put as many ads out there as they can, since they're only paying when someone clicks.

Filing a suit against Google won't do a thing except waste your money. I would stop worrying about things like this and wasting your time when you could be improving your business.

It doesn't matter, and I don't think anyone has said they are suing google over it. The fact is, its against the law to use someones word mark without permission especially for your own profit which is what google is doing. I don't see any MSN ads for this search http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS212US212&q=google

There isn't an ad that says "Google" with a link to MSN.
Its against the law. And the technology behind WHY its showing up is irrelevant. There a link with a trademarked name leading to another company - for a profit - and intentionally placed there by google.

Had a chat with one of the guy from the abuse department at BlueHost just for you people. During the end i recived a phonecall but a message appeared asking for my email address and i left it with Marc. If or when he gets back in touch with me ill let you guys know.

Visitor Name: VeerexAdmin
Question: n/a
IP Address: **.**.**.** :D
Browser Information: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
Capture Information:


Marc: Hello, my name is Marc and welcome to our real-time chat support.
VeerexAdmin: Hello Marc
VeerexAdmin: I am contacting you in regards of possibly your ads on google adsense which are using other people's company names as the title.
Marc: Our ads? Please provide an example.
VeerexAdmin:
Innohosting Web Hosting
200GB, 2000GB transfer, host 6
Domains, from just 6.95$/month.
www.BlueHost.com (http://www.BlueHost.com)
VeerexAdmin:
Voxtreme Web Hosting
200GB, 2000GB transfer, host 6
Domains on 1 account, from 6.95$/mo
www.Bluehost.com (http://www.Bluehost.com)
VeerexAdmin: Search for "Voxtreme" in google and look at what comes up
Marc: I will do so.
VeerexAdmin: Okay, please do. Many people are complaining about you guys using there business name in advertisments.
VeerexAdmin: You are in a in-direct way stealing there clients, Which could easily be classed as a crime.
Marc: OK, I see your example. May I have you hold a moment?
VeerexAdmin: Okay sure
Marc: Please wait a moment longer.
Marc: Talked to General Manager. He's aware of these situations and this is to be handled by our abuse dept. This is not placed by us but by an affiliate of BlueHost.
Marc: I notified our abuse dept.
Marc: Are you with voxtreme?
Marc: What is your email so I may submit a copy of this ticket to the abuse dept and for you to follow up if necessary.

I guess thanks for getting in touch with them. I do see that an affiliate has been putting up those ads so hopefully steven will have someone contact these affiliates and get things sorted out.

On other hand I think hostrocket is actually using the term "Voxtreme" as I don't see Voxtreme in their title. I guess I will have to get in touch with google as well.

Funny, they list under our company name on google too, but didn't use the name. They'll stop when they run out of money, just click on a few links for them :).

Alienware affiliates have been doing this for years to us: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us&q=area51+computers All that needed to be done is for them to register Area51 with a "-" so they could use the "Area-51" name. People with money get away with anything.

don't blame google, could you imagine trying to police and investigate every add before allowing someone to post it when they are making less than $0.10 off of some of these.

I can imagine them policing it no matter what they cost since by not policing it they are breaking federal law.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=15&sec=1125
Section 1125. False designations of origin, false descriptions, and dilution forbidden

(a) Civil action
(1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or
services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word,
term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any
false designation of origin, false or misleading description of
fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which -
(A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to
deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such
person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or
approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities
by another person, or
(B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the
nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his
or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial
activities,

shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that
he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.
(2) As used in this subsection, the term "any person" includes
any State, instrumentality of a State or employee of a State or
instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity.
Any State, and any such instrumentality, officer, or employee,
shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter in the same
manner and to the same extent as any nongovernmental entity.

And it seems like "do no evil" google is well aware of their misdeeds.
http://news.com.com/Googles+ad+sales+tested+in+court/2100-1024_3-6038955.html

This happens all the time, for example discountasp.net has been targeting our company name in their GoogleAds for over year, and some of their ads are slanderous.

For example if we do search for our company name, lets say ACME, INC
They have an add like this:

Don’t Host with acme.com
Use a real host
The Unquestioned .NET Leader
www . DiscountASP . NET

We have complained to google and this add eventually disappeared, but they are still using our company name as a keyword for their ads. In the way I see this as a compliment, they must be pissed off that we have a #1,2 and 3 natural free listing for the keywords that make money and they have to pay $9 per click.

While that isn't too nice of them its a little different than finding an ad with your company name in the title of the ad like this

Your Company Web Hosting
Great hosting plans! Starting at $6.95
Unlimited stuff too!

And its a link to another company's website.

@page-zone

That law applies to the people placing the ad, only applies to people that know the crime is being committed and allow them to continue doing it. So if you notify google they are required to remove it.

Google already knows about and publicly state they will not do anything about it, and are fighting several lawsuits over it. This is from their own trademark complaint page:

NOTE: We do not investigate for keyword use in the US and Canada.

So you can complain, but before hitting submit they tell you if you are in the US they won't investigate the complaint. That is because they want the courts to decide. But not obvious cases... they settle those. They want to win vague cases and ratchet their way up from the precedence of those lawsuits.

They have lost a couple of cases in Europe so they WILL investigate complaints from there. They've always settled cases out of court in the US when the trademark infringement was obvious. They haven't actually won a case yet and there are many pending against them.

The funniest part is, they DO prohibit the use of one companies trademarked name, out of every company on earth the one company trademark you can't put in your adword is any word trademarked by google.

I did send them a complaint this morning though. Probably wont go far but we'll see...

You are knowingly selling ads where when someone searches the word page-zone you display ads with the title "Page-Zone Web Hosting" and a link to tthe highest bidder's website.

Already sent you an email which didn't receive a reply and will be retaining a lawyer. I would like information on how long you have been advertising my companies name with links to other companies websites. Would also like to have a disclosure on how much money you have made with this illegal practice, and would like those profits submitted to me as prescibed by law.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=15&sec=1125

Failure to provide that information and compensate me for damages will definitely result in my filing a lawsuit against google in Federal Court for damages and attorney fees within 14 days.

Jim,

That may be their stated policy but it is not entirely true. Google will in fact remove ads that are using your company name without permission when you bring it to their attention. I worked closely with an Idealab company whose name appeared in unauthorized AdWords daily. A quick email to Google alerting them to the offending ad, and it was always removed promptly. Google's abuse department may have a backlog of complaints right now due to the sheer number of people running these kinds of ads, but the legal threat you sent them shouldn't really be necessary unless they completely shrug you off or tell you they're not going to do anything about it.

This happens all the time, for example discountasp.net has been targeting our company name in their GoogleAds for over year, and some of their ads are slanderous.

For example if we do search for our company name, lets say ACME, INC
They have an add like this:

Don’t Host with acme.com
Use a real host
The Unquestioned .NET Leader
www . DiscountASP . NET

We have complained to google and this add eventually disappeared, but they are still using our company name as a keyword for their ads. In the way I see this as a compliment, they must be pissed off that we have a #1,2 and 3 natural free listing for the keywords that make money and they have to pay $9 per click.
Slander is spoken word; libel is written. Furthermore, that ad is not in any way libelous.

Those of you sending emails to Google threatening lawsuits are being laughed at by the people who read them.

Other companies (who I won't mention here) have been using our company name as a keyword for their ads for a long time now. The way I look at it, if it's someone that's bigger than you are, at least it means you're on their radar which is worth something.

Obviously what's happening here is a very different case and should be dealt with seriously. Their the lowest form of life i you ask me.

Jim,

That may be their stated policy but it is not entirely true. Google will in fact remove ads that are using your company name without permission when you bring it to their attention. I worked closely with an Idealab company whose name appeared in unauthorized AdWords daily. A quick email to Google alerting them to the offending ad, and it was always removed promptly. Google's abuse department may have a backlog of complaints right now due to the sheer number of people running these kinds of ads, but the legal threat you sent them shouldn't really be necessary unless they completely shrug you off or tell you they're not going to do anything about it.

I did get a reply to the second email. Nearly immediately. The first was nice and polite, through the same form. The second was promising action. And all it takes to follow through is $150 and a written complaint.


Those of you sending emails to Google threatening lawsuits are being laughed at by the people who read them.


Probably. That's what I do. Luckily haven't had to do it in a long time. But there's a Federal Court right down the street from my servers. It's so cut and dry it might be fun. There's a big difference between using a keyworded search result and displaying a link with someone's trademarked name which leads to a competitor website. Like putting a link that says Ford Motor Company but the link code takes the viewer to Chrysler.

This is Matt Heaton with Bluehost.com. We DO NOT purchase any of our competitors keywords on Google. In fact I haven't even heard of the hosting companies in this thread that are claiming that we are doing it. To show who the real culprit is you can do the following.

1) Find the ad on Google that you find offensive.
2) Click on the Ad that takes you to Bluehost.com
3) Go to - http://www.bluehost.com/cgi-bin/cookie

Look at the output of that page and on the bottom line you will seea "r=SOMEAFFILIATE"

The "someaffiliate" part is the affiliate of Bluehost that would be doing the "dirty" marketing. 95% of the time it is some CJ affiliate in a far off country. If you take the CJ affiliate code after the "r=" you can approach CJ directly to get them banned. We have already stopped this for several CJ affiliate, but they just keep on coming.

So, while I don't condone this type of advertising please direct your efforts in the right direction and don't blame Bluehost directly for something we didn't do and are actively fighting against.

Thanks,
<<< Signatures need to be set up in your profile. >>>

BTW - It's nice to see you here in the forums, Matt. :)

Yes, and SEE what kind of rumors start to boil to the surface when your gone! Rediculous :)

Thanks for the link. My site no longer comes up, I don't know if it was the complaint to google, or the person ran out of money.

Normally I'm not much for forums and outside discussions. I kind of go my own way, but I hate to see badmouthing of Bluehost or Hostmonster for something we didn't do. I will try and be a little more active in the future - Its nice to be missed :)

Thanks,
<<< Signatures need to be set up in your profile. >>>

Glad to see the company president getting involved and standing behind his/ her company. Glad to see your post.

This is Matt Heaton with Bluehost.com. We DO NOT purchase any of our competitors keywords on Google. In fact I haven't even heard of the hosting companies in this thread that are claiming that we are doing it. To show who the real culprit is you can do the following.

1) Find the ad on Google that you find offensive.
2) Click on the Ad that takes you to Bluehost.com
3) Go to - http://www.bluehost.com/cgi-bin/cookie

Look at the output of that page and on the bottom line you will seea "r=SOMEAFFILIATE"

The "someaffiliate" part is the affiliate of Bluehost that would be doing the "dirty" marketing. 95% of the time it is some CJ affiliate in a far off country. If you take the CJ affiliate code after the "r=" you can approach CJ directly to get them banned. We have already stopped this for several CJ affiliate, but they just keep on coming.

So, while I don't condone this type of advertising please direct your efforts in the right direction and don't blame Bluehost directly for something we didn't do and are actively fighting against.

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

It's good that you found your way to the forums here where people are talking about a problem that is unfortunately involved with your company but obviously they would not continue to do this if they were not making money doing it. Therefore the problem still exists on your end. Perhaps a quick/random investigation of new sign-ups via affiliate may be in order to prevent things like this. If you've paid out commissions to any of these affiliates your company would still be held legally liable for this false advertising under federal law so you should do everything possible to prevent this type of thing. Unless of course you believe the profit gained from it is outweighing the possible risk then continue on doing it, but that would surly put a smudge on the bluehost name.

It's good that you found your way to the forums here where people are talking about a problem that is unfortunately involved with your company but obviously they would not continue to do this if they were not making money doing it. Therefore the problem still exists on your end. Perhaps a quick/random investigation of new sign-ups via affiliate may be in order to prevent things like this.

What makes you think they're not doing this already? He said that they've contacted CJ to remove some of the affiliates themselves but they can't police every incoming affiliate transaction since I'm sure a vast majority of them are legit.

Furthermore, how could they even determine if the new sign-up came from an ad like the ones you guys are complaining about here? That would require a lot of manpower.

If you've paid out commissions to any of these affiliates your company would still be help legally liable for this false advertising under federal law so you should do everything possible to prevent this type of thing.

Under what law?

He said, she said is not proof in my book.

I'll I'm doing is giving a suggestion how to better deal with the issue, the ads still existing makes me think not enough was done to resolve the problem.

The suggestion of having any "new" affiliate signing up a large portion of people investigated would not be hard at all.

As for the laws involved you should talk with a lawyer they can explain the legalities of it all to you should you be interested.

I wrote a friendly letter to Google.. They responded back saying they can indeed remove the ads. They wanted some documents faxed to them which I'll be doing shortly..

According to Google's email, they will also prevent the keyword from ever being used again by another company...

So looks like something can be done about this. I don't recommend jumping onto the legal boat until you have exhausted all other methods..

I was looking to start a topic in regards to this but I see it's already a discussion in progress

Sponsored Links
Wirenine.com Web Hosting
200GB web space, 2000GB Bandwidth,
Free site builder, from 6.95$/month
www.BlueHost.com

No surprise, I've been seeing it for the past week or so. Has anyone had the sponsor listing removed from their company name search results?

I was looking to start a topic in regards to this but I see it's already a discussion in progress



No surprise, I've been seeing it for the past week or so. Has anyone had the sponsor listing removed from their company name search results?

i dont see bluehost when i google wirenine,

I wrote a friendly letter to Google.. They responded back saying they can indeed remove the ads. They wanted some documents faxed to them which I'll be doing shortly..

According to Google's email, they will also prevent the keyword from ever being used again by another company...

So looks like something can be done about this. I don't recommend jumping onto the legal boat until you have exhausted all other methods..
I did the same. Colostore is advertising on our company name keyword on google. I contacted ColoStore as a courtesy, to let them remove the link without jeopardising their relationship with Google. They (Jay Kramer) said:

Do have a link to the page which explains the rules on this issue, this has been a common practice for quite sometime in the hosting industry

So I contacted Google instead. The ad still remains, but in the past they have taken a few weeks to get things like this resolved.


Simon

i dont see bluehost when i google wirenine,
google wirenine.com

google wirenine.com
It loks like the link to bluehost is actually coming from hosting-review-center.com - an affiliate site dressed as a review site

Maybe Bluehost can contact the affiliate and tell them to refrain from such dirty tactics.


Simon

It loks like the link to bluehost is actually coming from hosting-review-center.com - an affiliate site dressed as a review site

Maybe Bluehost can contact the affiliate and tell them to refrain from such dirty tactics.


Simon
I contacted them, they said there is nothing they can do about it and I should look over their affiliate program and terms of service.

WireNine - Just go through google like others have done and they will remove it from the wirenine.com search. No reason to even talk to the affilliate. (although I am sure some choice words come to mind) ;-)

Outbid them ;)

WireNine - Just go through google like others have done and they will remove it from the wirenine.com search. No reason to even talk to the affilliate. (although I am sure some choice words come to mind) ;-)

I contacted google and they arnt interested in doing anything about it :( in my case

Well I'd send them a C&D letter and then if they didnt stop I'd get everyone I know to go and click their link 100's of times. Maybe google could catch it as fraudulent clicks. Or you can always out source your ad clickers :)

Using keywords of company names has been tested in court and found to be perfectly legal. If someone is using keywork "Honda" and sell motorcycles, its perfectly legal. The tested case was a furniture company, so with those keywords it should be hard to find the judgement on the Internet somewhere.

Using the company name in the ancor text but having the link go to another companies site hasn't been tested and is most likely illegal. If the ad is a link using your trademarked name but leading to another companies site google will take it down. If not you could always contact this law firm and they will take it down post haste or pay you large sums of money eventually. They took my link down, but if not I'm sure this person can help:

Craig Delsack
Law Offices of Craig Delsack, LLC
600 Madison Avenue, 22nd Floor
New York, NY 10022-1615
Tel 212-688-8944

Actually I just found this - here's one case they won dealing with just using keywords (not trademarked name in anchor text of the ad)


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6708694/


Google loses trademark name in anchor text case (second part of same lawsuit):

In yesterday's decision, Brinkema ruled that Geico had "established a likelihood of confusion" resulting from the use of the trademarks and therefore (according to the Lanham Act) there had been a violation of its trademark rights, but "solely with regard to those sponsored links that use Geico's trademarks in their headings or text."

http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2005/08/16/judge_rules_against_google_in_geico_case/

blue host could stop this at any time and should be doing something to stop it, people need to stop blaming the middle man(Google,MSN,Yahoo) and put the affiliate and blue host on the stand.

I seen this on Yahoo Seen our name on the side bar with BlueHost.com on it..

Never seen anything like that. i am looking to see what Blue Host has to say about it!

I was looking to start a topic in regards to this but I see it's already a discussion in progress



No surprise, I've been seeing it for the past week or so. Has anyone had the sponsor listing removed from their company name search results?

Thats what was happening to me, and its totally illegal.
http://www.page-zone.com/trademark.jpg

The letter I got back from google had some form response on how they were not responsible, but the trademarked name in the links suddenly disappeared as well. And I'm sure google is fully aware of their liability, or the links wouldn't have been removed.
http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2005/08/16/judge_rules_against_google_in_geico_case/

Just contact google and show them your trademark paper work, they will remove the name although they can still advertise just not use your trademark in their keyword.

Just contact google and show them your trademark paper work, they will remove the name although they can still advertise just not use your trademark in their keyword.

I can verify that that works, but their whole business model is indexing words, and the relevance to sites. How difficult is it to compare search terms against the trademark database? Especially when the database entry contains a long list of its own keywords relating to the business that holds the trademark.

I can verify that that works, but their whole business model is indexing words, and the relevance to sites. How difficult is it to compare search terms against the trademark database? Especially when the database entry contains a long list of its own keywords relating to the business that holds the trademark.Because its legal to advertise on trademarks, just not to use them in the ad.

I dont mind people using my name. I take issue to people advertising claiming to be me, then linking to their own website.

I dont mind people using my name. I take issue to people advertising claiming to be me, then linking to their own website.If someone is saying they are xxxhost.com and yet that refers somewhere to aaahost.com else that is against adwords rules. If you haven't gotten that type of ad removed shoot me a pm, I have a friend at google and can report it quicker.

thanks, Ben