February 21, 2008

Brand Protection Online: Do(n’t) Google Ads Constitute Commercial Use Of A Trademark On Gripe Sites?

In Online Brand Protection, Google | 6 comments | permalink

It is legal to register a trademarked domain and publish a website on the domain if it is non-commercial in nature–think review sites, gripe sites, fan sites. An example would be Walmartwatch.com, a Wal-Mart gripe site published by Five Stones and The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics.

But what happens when a gripe site publishes Google ads to generate revenue? How can this be considered non-commercial when the unauthorized party is leveraging the IP assets of another entity, in a disparaging way, to generate revenue? There’s a lot of gray here.

What constitutes commercial use? What doesn’t?

Let’s review an example. The screenshot below displays a search on Google for “University of Phoenix.” Note the highlighted gripe site, UOPSucks.com, ranking in the brand real estate of University of Phoenix.

university-of-phoenix-sucks.jpg

 

The screenshot below display the home page of the gripe site:

uop-sucks-com.jpg
 

How do I know the highlighted ads are Google ads? Below is a screenshot of the source code with the Google script highlighted.

uop-sucks-source-code.jpg

 

If common sense prevails, it won’t be legal to monetize a gripe site through ad revenue.

 

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6 comments for this post.

  1. Trackback from isedb.com on February 21st, 2008 :

    Brand Protection Online: Do(n’t) Google Ads Constitute Commercial Use Of A Trademark On Gripe Sites?

    It is legal to register a trademarked domain and publish a website on the domain if it is non-commercial in nature–think review sites, gripe sites, fan sites. An example would be Walmartwatch.com, a Wal-Mart gripe site published by Five Stones and Th…

  2. Comment from jeff G on February 22nd, 2008 :

    Why isn’t Google at least partly culpable for these criminal operations?

  3. Comment from Tom Crandall on February 24th, 2008 :

    Jeff,

    It is common sense for most people to react with your question. The reality, thus far, lies in Google’s ability to circumvent any shred of responsibility–they have successfully been able to argue that they are not responsible for what other entities do with their technology

    The funniest part of this argument is Google is making millions on this activity annually and yet their motto is “don’t be evil.”  Uh… “don’t be evil unless we profit from it” is more accurate.
    Tom

  4. Comment from Meredith on February 27th, 2008 :

    I don’t understand why this would be considered commercial use. Isn’t it also considered non-commercial fair use for an ad-supported newspaper to publish a negative article about a brand?

    I’m not a lawyer, but I was under the impression that even writing a book about a brand and selling it would not be considered commercial use, as long as the author/publisher is clear on the fact that it is not authorized, and is not attempting to use the brand to sell a competing product or create consumer confusion.

  5. Comment from Tom Crandall on February 28th, 2008 :

    Meredith,

    Thanks for your comment. The issue here is the owner of the gripe site generating ad revenue on a trademarked domain–www.uopsucks.com.

  6. Comment from Sheryar Nizar on January 6th, 2009 :

    Is there any policy by search engine for online brand protection?
    –
    Sheryar Nizar

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