May 2009
Google's AdWords Goes Global
Google AdWords service is going so well that it has decided to go global extending the service to 190 counties throughout the world. It’s been nearly a full year since Google introduced its controversial AdWords service to Ireland and the UK which allowed non-rights holders to bid for the right to use a registered trade mark to generate a sponsored link to their website (for more information see Briffa article googleadwords).
The controversial policy had previously only been in operation in the US and Canada. Despite the policy causing outrage amongst trade mark owners leading to litigation on both sides of the Atlantic, most recently with a US Court of Appeal ruling against the policy (see Briffa article adwordsgoogle), Google has ploughed on taking advantage of an apparent loophole in the law.
And now Google has extended its coverage to countries as far and wide as Russia, Japan, Mexico, Africa and the Middle East. In fact the only countries where the policy will not apply are Australia, Cyprus, Hungary, New Zealand, South Korea, Austria, Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway, Spain, Bahamas, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania, Portugal, Switzerland, Brazil, France, Luxembourg, Romania, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Germany, Macau, Slovakia, China, Greece, Netherlands, and Slovenia.
Therefore Google will still investigate the use of trade marked terms to trigger adverts in the in these countries. Google has given trade mark owners one month to prepare for the change. In a statement on its website Google said:
"As of 4 June, Google will no longer review keyword lists for monitored trademarks in these countries. This will bring these countries into line with the US, Canada, UK & Ireland who already employ this policy, in the EU (excluding the UK & Ireland, where this change happened in 2008), Switzerland, Australia, China, Brazil, Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein, New Zealand, Taiwan and both Koreas, the trademark policy will continue as is. Google will continue to review the keyword lists of advertisers outside the UK & Ireland and will not allow unauthorized advertisers to select monitored trademarked terms.
Briffa’s Comment
One of the reasons Google has not introduced this policy to other EU countries is because trade mark owners have the added protection of unfair competition in many of these countries. Google has probably avoided the other 11 or so non-EU countries because a similar right exists in these territories too.
In the UK however a loop hole exists which allows Google to offer for sale other people’s trade marks because this does not come within the meaning of “trade mark use” for the purposes of trade mark infringement. This point is currently the subject of a referral to the ECJ however it is likely that the only way of closing this loophole in the law will be through legislative reform either in the UK or EU wide. The process of European legislative reform is slow and by the time it comes Google will have made a fortune and moved on to its next venture.
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