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| ▲ | Marsymars 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It ought to be illegal to buy ads against trademarks (+/- some reasonable edit distance). I get the intention here, but how do you limit the collateral damage? (Or do you not care about it / see reducing the ability to advertise as a positive?) There are a lot of trademarks, and they have to be scoped to specific goods and services, but Google has no way of knowing if you're actually looking for something related to that trademark. e.g. doing a quick trademark search, I see active, registered trademarks for "elevator", "tower", "collision", "cancer sucks", "steve's", "local", "best", "bus", "eco", "panel", "motherboard", "grass", etc. etc. I'm not familiar with any of those brands, but that's just a small sample of the fairly generic terms that would no longer be able to be advertised on. | | |
| ▲ | ndriscoll an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Google has a way of knowing. They can ask for documentation on who their customers are and what markets they operate in, and do some due diligence. Just like they have ways of knowing whether the ads they run are for blatant scams. | | |
| ▲ | Marsymars 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I'm not saying Google doesn't know if a company is in a particular market, I'm saying that a) Google doesn't know what market I'm searching for something from and b) even if they know both from context, it puts them in some awkward positions. e.g. Vice Media has a trademark on "motherboard" that covers the tech news blog website service. Is it now impossible for Asus to place an ad for the official Asus motherboard blog on the search term "motherboard"? Is it legal to advertise for "motherboard" for any good or service other than a tech news blog website? Is it now illegal to advertise a website featuring in-depth motherboard reviews using the term "motherboard"? If I search for "motherboard website", what is Google allowed to show me for ads, given they don't know if I'm looking for the Vice website, or motherboard reviews, or the Asus homepage? If a plain search for "motherboard" results in Vice's website not being in the top results, is Vice allowed to advertise on their own trademark to put it above other results? (Either above organic results, or above paid results for motherboard manufacturers, depending on whether you're allowing the latter.) |
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| ▲ | adastra22 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There should be no ads on the internet. | | |
| ▲ | Marsymars 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, and like, I commiserate with that view, I think it would make the internet/world a better place, but I don't think "no ads for trademarks" is helpful way to reach for that goal. |
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| ▲ | KellyCriterion 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It ought to be illegal to buy ads against trademark this was one of the biggest problems of AdWords from beginning on: You could do brand-bidding unlimited, even today you see it every day: Search for brand X and competitor Y will show up with same words | |
| ▲ | nitwit005 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I agree it's a bit perverse, but the problem predates Google. People do the real world equivalent all the time. When there are big conferences for specific companies, rivals buy up local ad space on billboards and subways. That has caused some companies hosting conferences to pay for some of those ad spaces in advance. | | |
| ▲ | Marsymars an hour ago | parent [-] | | Ads on billboards and subways actually bother me far more than search ads. It's visual and cognitive pollution on public space that I've never consented to - I find it viscerally offensive. We don't accept billboards on hiking trails, or in elementary classrooms, or in courtrooms (as far as I'm aware, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone turns up a real-life grotesque examples) - we shouldn't accept them in other public spaces either. |
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| ▲ | stevage 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't agree. If I search for "leatherman" it seems totally reasonable to give competitors a chance. I generally think brand recognition is too powerful. If there is another high quality multitool on the market for a better price, why shouldn't I know about it? | | |
| ▲ | Marsymars an hour ago | parent [-] | | Disclaimer: See my sibling comments for some my general thoughts on the problems with banning trademark ads. But for your specific example - I get where you're coming from, but I'm skeptical that the ad market is even that functional. Firstly, if I google "leatherman", every sponsored result for Leatherman brand multitools anyway. (And no amount of refreshes or re-searches gives me anything other than Leathermans.) Secondarily, I'm not convinced that the set of advertisers (not counting Leatherman itself) that will advertise for "leatherman" are actually on average a better products for the consumer. (e.g. as opposed to lower-quality, higher-priced knockoffs.) | | |
| ▲ | stevage an hour ago | parent [-] | | These are both fair points (generally, the consumer market is pretty dysfunctional and not behaving at all like economists would like it to), but the comment I was replying to ("It ought to be illegal to buy ads against trademarks") seems both too heavy-handed and unlikely to actually do any good. |
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