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Spots & Space August 21, 2007
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The Word “Copyright” Keeps Google Lawyers Busy Day And Night Whether it Be For Selling Alleged Trademark Infringements On AdWords Or Listing Third Party News Items On Its News Service

Being a Google lawyer just got a whole lot busier – the world’s largest airline, American Airlines, is suing the world’s largest media company, Google, for allegedly selling its trademarks as keywords to third parties that use them to advertise within Google’s AdWords service.

copyrightIt’s not the first time Google has faced such a lawsuit – and the results have been different in different jurisdictions and there has been some settling out of court so case law is all over the place – but no real biggie like American Airlines has entered the fray before. Google usually was pretty secure because it has the best copyright lawyers that money can buy, but it now has an adversary that can also afford the best copyright legal brains money can buy, so this time things could get interesting.

American Airlines is a Google customer, promoting its various trademarks within advertising keyword search. What it doesn’t like is Google selling, say, “American Airlines” within the AdWords search service to a third party wanting their web sites to appear as possible selections when such a specific search term is used.  American basically says if it owns the copyright then others can’t sell that copyright use to others. And that‘s where the federal court suit comes in.

American has a pretty strong no-nonsense reputation when it comes to litigation. So it is a bit surprising to see the company issue a statement after news of the law suit broke in which it took pains to defend its overall business relationship with Google, and that it was just this one point on which the two companies were at odds.

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Europe Started Slower Than The US In Embracing Internet Advertising Opportunities, But It Has Caught Up Real Fast -- In Percentage Terms Its 2007 Web Advertising Spend Is Forecast To Just Exceed The US And Gain Even More In The Years To Come
European online advertising is forecast to grow some 25% this year whereas in the US online growth rates are projected at 19%, but while the Internet’s percentage of the total advertising spend is pretty much the same for both (7.2 – 7.3%) Europe is expecting to hit around 9.4% in 2010 compared to 8.9% in the US.

Is There A Correlation Between Internet Advertising Increasing 22% in 2005 While National Newspaper Advertising Dropped 4.7%, And That Some 50 Million Americans Now Turn to the Internet For Their Daily News Fix?
As broadband Internet access increases so will their users turn to the Internet for their daily news requirements, according to significant US research. And since 37% of adult Americans now have broadband compared to 10% four years ago, is it just coincidence that advertising revenue growth for traditional media fell last year while on the Internet it soared 22.3%?

Overall Global Advertising In 2005 Is Forecast Lower, But the Internet Spend Keeps Going Up With Television Feeling the Worst Pinch of Ad Placements Going Elsewhere
The television share of global advertising appears to have peaked at 38% and is now on the way down, led by two of the world’s leading television markets – The US and Japan – according to new report issued by the ZenithOptimedia Group.

When It Comes to Dealing With the French, Google has “Beaucoup Problèmes”. Add One More -- the French News Agency AFP Sues In US Federal Court
Google has suffered several setbacks against its trademark advertising policies in French court decisions, including losing a recent appeals court ruling, but now AFP, the French news agency, has sued in a US court to stop the search engine from displaying its news and photographs within its news section without permission.

With Record Internet Advertising in 2004 on Both Sides of the Atlantic Is It Any Wonder Traditional Media Invests Big-Time Buying Online Sites?
US Internet advertising grew 17% in the 2004 fourth quarter to achieve a record $9.6 billion for the year – that’s 32% more than 2003 and 19% more than in 2000 when the dot com boom was at its highest. Some European countries are reporting even higher percentage gains....

“American Airlines appreciates and values the importance of the Internet and the convenience that companies such as Google create for consumers around the globe. The accessibility and ease of use of these search engines are important assets for end users and commercial enterprises,” its statement said.

“The business issue American has with Google is not related to their overall business model. Rather, the dispute is centered on Google's process of allowing other companies to purchase the right to use American Airlines trademarks for Internet search. In working through this business dispute, American is hopeful that it will continue professional, friendly and fruitful relationships with Google, while finding an appropriate resolution to the trademark issues.

Reading between the lines it’s fairly obvious the two companies have been discussing the issue for some time but it has not progressed as American wished. So the lawyers basically told the airline, “Let’s get their attention by filing a lawsuit, ask for unspecified damages, but show a willingness to continue talking. That should get their attention.”  In the US they call that “hardball”.

In the past Google has been successful in the US in ensuring no such case has ever gone to a jury trial. Perhaps the most serious case up to now is the one involving Geico Insurance in which a court ruled against the car insurance company, saying it had not sufficiently proven that Google’s sale of its trademark name to a third party for search-related advertising had caused much consumer confusion. So can American prove consumer confusion with what is happening to its trademarks?

A more serious problem may come, however, more immediately from another case that has slowly been making its way through the courts.  American Blind and Wallpaper Factory first filed its trademark suit four years ago. In 2005, a New York Federal court ruled the suit could continue based on claims of trademark infringement, unfair competition, contributory trademark infringement and contributory dilution, but the court also threw out the company’s claim of “tortuous interference with prospective business advantage." The company wanted stopped Google’s sale of its trademarks in keyword search bought by other companies given that competitors' ads can appear on results pages turned up by searches for "American wallpaper" and "American blind."

When Google began its advertising keyword search business it had avoided including trademark names, but it became obvious to its marketing people they were letting huge amounts of revenue slip through their fingers by doing that. So back in 2004 the company made a strategic decision, probably based on the best legal advice money could buy, that it was worth the legal gamble to start marketing other people’s trademarks, too.

At the time Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales and operations, said “By letting people restrict certain words, you're not getting the results that people expect from Google."That was then seen as “almost a declaration of war on trademark owners,” according to Terence P. Ross, a trademark attorney at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.  And guess who is the lead counsel for the American Airlines suit. Yes, the very same Terence P. Ross.

The monetary importance to Google in changing its policy to allow trademark sales was made clear at the time by Eric Goldman, a law professor at Marquette University, who had followed legal issues related to search engine advertising. "Google can't be a multibillion-dollar company if they disable trademarked keywords at anyone's request."

Google explained at the time, “We do not believe that Internet users are likely to be confused by the clearly labeled text ads that appear on Google. If any confusion is possible, we believe it is caused by the ad text, which is why our policy focuses on use of trademarks in ad text."

All one has to do is look at Google’s going public a year later in August, 2005, at $85 a share and its current share price of just under $500 to see how important a revenue earner the keyword search is, and how financially important the trademark sales are within that service. That’s why the company will spend whatever it takes to protect legally that revenue and why it takes a major company like American Airlines to force the issue.

Other companies that also object to Google’s trademark policy will fear that Google will eventually settle out-of-court privately with American Airlines – Google likes to make such private deals without releasing details as it did in the AFP copyright case, its deal with the Associated Press, and even what it is working on with Belgian publishers who won a copyright suit that is now on appeal.

If that comes about one way to check the results will be to do a search on the likes of “AA.com, or AAdvantage” and see what shows, although a possible deal could include a revenue share (Google likes revenue share deals)  if a third party buys one of the airline’s trademarks. But if there is such a deal the likelihood is we’ll never know the details. 

Google needs that secrecy within its out-of-court settlements. The last thing it needs is a landslide of others crying out,  “Me too!”

ftm Knowledge

The State of the Print Media in the World
new update

ftm reports on the World Association of Newspapers Congresses. Includes WAN readership studies, African media and journalism, Russian media and Russian politics, press freedom. 82 pages. PDF file (August 2007)

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Further Complicated: Advertising, Children and Television

Advertising and television face more complaints, criticism and new rules. ftm reports on the debate in Europe and North America 43 pages PDF file (March 2007)

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Media Measurement Moves Forward and Everywhere

Includes: mobile and internet metrics, electronic measurement systems and device descriptions, RAJAR (UK) debate, with comments. 57 pages PDF (May 2007)
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French National Newspapers
publishers, designs, editors all change, with comments. 40 pages PDF (updated July 2006)

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