3 ms·

I blame Google here as well. Their practice of selling ads on searches for trademarked brand names of competitors, forcing brands to pay for their own ads to (

I blame Google here as well. Their practice of selling ads on searches for trademarked brand names of competitors, forcing brands to pay for their own ads to (only partially, as seen here) mitigate the negative effects is clearly predatory. I wouldn't even expect them to necessarily proactively screen for these cases, but it should at least be possible to demonstrate that you're using the trademark being advertised on (by demonstrating that you own the .com, or by submitting a trademark registration number), and henceforth prevent anyone else from advertising on that keyword. Of course, Google has a financial incentive not to do that.

wmf 5y ago
It depends. It's legal and IMO ethical to use another company's trademark if you're an authorized distributor or a competitor using the trademark in a non-scammy way. For example, a "Better than Thermapen" ad would be a legit (if weak) form of competition.
- tempestn 5y ago
  Using that sort of ad copy is fine IMO. What I take issue with is advertising using competitors' brands as keywords, so when someone searches for "Thermapen", your ad comes up above their organic result.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    Eh, in some markets trademark genericisation would mean that someone searching [BrandName] might genuinely be looking for any product that fills roughly the same function. If I google "Blu Tack" I don't care if I get the stuff made by Bostik, and I don't even know what the generic term for that product __is__. Maybe you could argue "well, that's the reward [Brand] gets from insanely successful organic marketing and/or being first to market", which I suppose has some merit, but I don't think it's inherently unethical to market at brands in that context.
    - tempestn 5y ago
      Yeah, that's fair. I guess like anything there are grey areas. It's definitely frustrating when you have a more niche brand like thermapen though, where that's definitely not the case, and you can see knockoffs bidding on your keywords and essentially taking advantage of people looking for your product/service.
dannyw 5y ago
One may argue this as problematic, the other may argue this as increasing competition.

wmf 5y ago

It depends. It's legal and IMO ethical to use another company's trademark if you're an authorized distributor or a competitor using the trademark in a non-scammy way. For example, a "Better than Thermapen" ad would be a legit (if weak) form of competition.

tempestn 5y ago
Using that sort of ad copy is fine IMO. What I take issue with is advertising using competitors' brands as keywords, so when someone searches for "Thermapen", your ad comes up above their organic result.
- sellyme 5y ago
  Eh, in some markets trademark genericisation would mean that someone searching [BrandName] might genuinely be looking for any product that fills roughly the same function. If I google "Blu Tack" I don't care if I get the stuff made by Bostik, and I don't even know what the generic term for that product __is__. Maybe you could argue "well, that's the reward [Brand] gets from insanely successful organic marketing and/or being first to market", which I suppose has some merit, but I don't think it's inherently unethical to market at brands in that context.
  - tempestn 5y ago
    Yeah, that's fair. I guess like anything there are grey areas. It's definitely frustrating when you have a more niche brand like thermapen though, where that's definitely not the case, and you can see knockoffs bidding on your keywords and essentially taking advantage of people looking for your product/service.

dannyw 5y ago

One may argue this as problematic, the other may argue this as increasing competition.