Lawyers Can't Agree On Competitor Keyword Ads
from the how-difficult-is-this? dept
The whole Google selling trademarked ads issue is getting ridiculous. Now a bunch of lawyers are arguing over it, after one lawyer bought Google ads on the name of a competitor. The competitor in question sent a nastygram to the lawyer saying he was trying to "sponge" off his reputation. Except... that's not true. As the accused lawyer in question points out, he just put his name where potential customers might be looking for it. As we've pointed out before this is no different than a new soda company wanting to be placed on the shelf next to Coca-Cola. They know people will go looking for Coke, and they want to make sure their bottles on there as well. The purpose of trademark law is to protect someone from being lied to when one company claims they're something they aren't. However, to just make sure your advertisements appear where people are looking for your competitors is simply good business. The reporter then goes out and digs up a bunch of quotes from other lawyers suggesting that the ad-buying lawyer is an underhanded bastard who is somehow "cheating." It's pretty clear from the quotes that most of the quoted lawyers don't understand the actual issue at hand, but that doesn't seem to stop the reporter from quoting them all, without quoting a single source (other than the accused lawyer) with the opposing viewpoint.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
