Coke Adds Life

It’s nice when a big company like Google comes out and admits that I was right. Their decision today to start accepting ads on all trademarked terms is a wise one. Trademark owners should be able to protect their brand names from fraudulent or misleading use, but not from being put into unfriendly context or comparisons.

Burger King put their restaurants on street corners across from McDonalds to gain context and comparison. The Pepsi Challenge was about context and comparison. So are generic or store brand drugs that say things like ‘same active ingredients as Tylenol’ on the package. The online equivalent is buying a competitive keyword and saying to consumers ‘if you think you want that, check this out.’

Congratulations to Google for this bold move. I’m sure they’re ready for the barrage of lawsuits that are sure to show up – they wouldn’t have made this reversal without being really ready to defend it to the end. While I don’t think they did this out of any love of free speech – their revenue stream was going to disappear one keyword at a time if they let the ‘banned brand’ trend continue – everyone wins in the end, including the free markets at large.

For the record, I don’t agree with the second part of their decision – to allow trademark holders to keep their trademarks out of other peoples’ ad copy. But I can understand why they might make this decision. Allowing the use of 3rd party trademarks in ads creates a real opportunity for fraud and misleading ads. By banning that use (upon request of the trademark owner) the folks at Google can avoid thousands of judgment calls and arguments. It’s hard to blame them for that.

See Also: John Battelle comments, Search Engine Journal, and Traffick too.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at April 14, 2004 12:07 AM