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  1. #26

    Warnings on Trademark violations

    Yes, it doesn't take long for others to air their grievances on issues. I don't know enough about your case, Annette, so I sent a query to the Customer Care manager and also asked around about the process for issuing these warnings. When I found more information on the subject I'll post what I can. I also agree that taking the issue through a two step process - friendly warning to a more strongly worded warning- wouldn't be a bad thing.

    If there is a mistake -as you appear to be pointing out, Annette, then you simply need to reply to the message and request clarification. We're not perfect. Getting feedback on these issues helps us to improve our processes and make us better hosts.

    Thanks for the time and consideration!
    Arnel C.

  2. #27
    I would not say this is a "me too" as much as it is a gripe about what I see as poor behavior - if the topic hadn't been here, I'd have created it. I am not a fan of frivolous legal threats, as quite a number of people know, especially when they start off categorically stating as fact something that is not true (and beyond that, something they couldn't possibly even know) and then when it appears they don't seem to understand how search engines work or can't use the very tools provided by places like Google to show why such and such an ad appeared. Searching for "Jim's pet supplies" is going to bring back boatloads of results, most of which have nothing to do with Jim and his supplies and a lot to do with pet supplies as a generic term.

    Arn: I did indeed reply to the first vague notice (also referenced by the OP) asking what on earth it was talking about, and then civilly, but quite firmly, to the followup sent to us, indicating that we were not now, nor have we ever, had inmotion as a keyword for anything in any campaign. After which I did in fact dump inmotion into our negative keywords, as I've no interest in our name appearing (even by Google's associations of other terms) in a search of any company who has just falsely accused us of trademark violations.

    My suggestion for your two step process about this particular issue would involve thinking more about Occam's Razor: which is more likely? That this giant cabal of hosting providers all decided to use "inmotion web hosting review" as a phrase? Or is it more likely that a portion of that phrase, minus the inmotion name, causes ads other than inmotion's to appear in the results that are offered? The latter is quite clearly explained by Google themselves if someone had been more concerned about getting it right than getting out however many threatening emails they thought needed to be sent. My suggestion would also involve not sending quasi legal things from the "Trademarks Department" with no name attached, like those annoying bogus Chinese domain use things - which almost got deleted, by the way, until a duplicate of the same vague notice landed in our helpdesk - and would involve consultation with an actual attorney, who would have cautioned about the immediate confrontational nature of that notice (i.e., "You're using our trademark, stop!" when you have no credible information that this is the case), or cautioned about having such notices sent at all, given you have zero evidence that anyone is stepping on anyone else's trademarks, or cautioned that only the attorney should be sending such notices, via physical mail, to whoever was the recipient of them.

    I'll also add this:

    We keep a list of providers of services that we do not provide (or don't want to) - it could be Windows hosting, for instance, or someone wants a mirror of their site elsewhere in addition to within our network, or something else. We base that list on what we know of the companies on it: have they been around for awhile? Are they free of bait and switch tactics? Do they have recurring massive downtime issues for which they give vague reasons? Are they known to have vanished under one name due to issues, financial or otherwise, only to reappear under another? There are a whole list of questions we ask ourselves, because we are, in a way, putting our reputation on the line by making any such recommendations. One of the most important is this: do they act ethically and responsibly? Acting responsibly includes not putting themselves in situations where they could conceivably find themselves paying out massive amounts of money to parties they have accused of wrongdoing because they did not bother to adequately research their claims - or because the person to whom they sent their little gem is having a bad day or is just itching for a battle because they are well aware they are in the right and has the time and the inclination to deal with it. I don't right now, as we have a variety of different projects in motion, and my response otherwise would have been akin to McAuliffe to the Germans at Bastogne, or to pretty much everyone's reaction to the MCHost debacle (oldtimers, alert!).
    Annette
    Hosting Matters, Inc.
    Superior service. Sensible price.

  3. #28
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    Toronto
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    Is there actually any law/bi-law that forbids bidding on a word that had been trademarked ?

    If that's the case then wouldn't the responsibility fall on top of the ad agency since it is them that's making the word available for bidding ?

    I would classify this as legal bullying.
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  4. #29
    Thanks for clarifying on the event as it occurred for you, Annette. Our Customer Care manager (one of several customer advocate groups within our company) came to me and mentioned that the issue is going up the ladder, so I should see some further information on the issue shortly (hopefully by next week). It's interesting as I've heard that we've also received these same type of warnings from other larger hosting companies. Not to justify our own actions, but just to mention that you apparently aren't the only ones. I'm not sure of the trademark laws on this as I am not a lawyer or part of the legal group. However, I do care about how we interact with our customers and about our brand, so I want to make sure we are doing the right thing. If no one has done it already, you might interested in checking out Google's Advertising Policies - my group's been reading through them with interest as well, and I'm forwarding them "up the chain" in regards to this issue.

    Thanks again for the discussion! My goal in all of this is simply to make sure that we're treating people fairly and doing the right thing.

  5. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by lonea View Post
    Is there actually any law/bi-law that forbids bidding on a word that had been trademarked ?
    None specifically in the U.S., although Google's contract says something about that act. Probably a next best thing, the Lanham Act prevents one from commercially exploiting a party's trademark without their permission.

    If it helps, Arn, get your company's "stakeholders" (i.e. legal, marketing, social media) together. Although that's (hehe) pretty obvious, everyone can then share their concerns and (hopefully) find ways to address them with minimal negative impact.

    For example: legal says the company must enforce their trademark or risk losing it, then social media says the way the company handles that issue might needlessly draw them flak. Something along those lines.

  6. #31
    Inmotion just sent me an email thanking me for our "cooperation".

    Let's make something very clear here: there is no "cooperation" going on. We have never used the inmotion name as a keyword, period. Had inmotion raised a complaint with google about a possible trademark violation, google would have told them exactly the same thing when they investigated - just as they would/will no doubt do the same for the ads for GoDaddy, NetSol, LiquidWeb, Amazon, etc., as neither those places nor we have any need to be so unethical as to use another company's name as a keyword. That is the only part of the phrase provided that belongs to them, and rereading the original followup they sent, they actually wanted ALL of the words in the phrase they provided ("inmotion web hosting review") removed and added to the negative keywords list. Guess what: not happening. You, inmotion, do not own the words web, hosting, review, or any combination thereof. What google shows as results on some phrase that MAY include your name doesn't have squat to do with that name being used in any keywords for the companies whose ads appear, and I'm seriously reconsidering my addition of inmotion to my negative keywords list (population: one, done both out of courtesy and disgust).

    This latest little note is once again from the "trademark team". Apparently the "team" needs a lot more education about making presumptions on who is violating what based solely on the output of ads by a search engine, and I would, once again, seriously suggest that you consult an actual attorney.

    Ionea: as Dave Zan points out, here in the US the Lanham Act would probably cover it. Regardless of that, the onus not to use trademarks without permission or under certain circumstances is on the person creating the ad or content, not the search engine. They have policies in place regarding that use, just as service providers often have policies in place telling people not to engage in copyright/trademark violations; however, again, that is something controlled by the end user, not the provider. The service provider should have a policy of investigating complaints regarding these things - Google has a whole section about it, hosts generally have abuse addresses to write - but they can't possibly know every single thing that may be trademarked, or that someone is utilizing another party's content without permission, etc., unless they're notified about alleged infringement.

    I will say that in my opinion, it's terrifically unethical and morally wrong to lift other peoples' content (text, photos, etc.) for use or use another party's trademark in keywords for advertising purposes when not authorized to do so. I am about as much a fan of those types of people as I am of copyright/trademark/patent trolls - that is to say, I am not a fan of either of those two groups at all.

    Dear readers: sorry for the minirants. As I said, I'm no fan of this sort of thing, and less a fan of little legal bombs being tossed about that have no basis in reality.
    Annette
    Hosting Matters, Inc.
    Superior service. Sensible price.

  7. #32
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Ottawa, Canada
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    424
    Shouldn't InMotion be filing with Google itself, they have built-in trademark/copyright protection stuff built-in to ad serving to prevent this exact problem from occurring. Not only does it prevent people from placing ads on protected terms it also prevents the long tail combination that this case is referring to.

  8. #33
    Join Date
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    I really think InMotion doesn't know what they're doing here.
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  9. #34
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
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    Anyone with a trademark can have the trademarked specific keyword unusable on Google Adwords.

    After filing a complaint with Google, you can also authorize specific AdWords accounts to use your trademark, including your own AdWords account or those of any partners or affiliates you may have

    Google will not restrict the use of your trademark in AdWords ads unless you submit a valid complaint, even if your trademark is registered.

    https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/2562124
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