> 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.

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ndriscoll 4 hours 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 3 hours 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 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There should be no ads on the internet.

	▲	Marsymars 5 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.