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This situation is always the most frustrating to deal with. It is borderline phishing and should be as simple of a fix as making it a ToS violation. Just like a

This situation is always the most frustrating to deal with. It is borderline phishing and should be as simple of a fix as making it a ToS violation. Just like all of Google's dead products, this type of behavior speaks volumes to their disregard for users, both individual search consumers and enterprise ad buyers.

RajT88 3y ago
I do not see it today, but some months ago if you searched for CosmosDB on Bing, you would get ads for MongoDB Atlas. Gave me a chuckle. Left hand - Right Hand.
echelon 3y ago
It feels like extortion and trademark violation. I wish the FTC would prohibit buying ads for brand names.
- jrockway 3y ago
  There's kind of a grey area, though. What if I want to redo the windows in my house? Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft.
  - echelon 3y ago
    It's not a grey area if you're putting out an ad for a product in the same category as the registered trademark. Putting up a "Nintendo Switch" ad on the "Steam Deck" search term, and vice versa, is wrong. Even more so when big companies camp on the trademarks of smaller startups. I'm angry because this has happened to me.
  - gbear605 3y ago
    Trademarks are for a given category. Apple has a trademark on “Apple” in the computing space but they don’t run up against apple orchards.
    - jrockway 3y ago
      Sure, but the point is that you have to know what category someone is search for in order to apply the ad filtering rules. If people search for "windows", Google has to take its best guess on whether you want Windows 11 or quotes on replacing your wall-holes. Even then, what counts as an ad that competes with Microsoft? Can ubuntu advertise their Windows alternative? Can an authorized reseller advertise themselves as the best place to buy a copy? This problem sounds almost impossible to me, and the cure almost sounds worse than the disease.
      - brookst 3y ago
        I suspect there are very few searches for the single word “windows”. Google probably knows the category for the vast majority of searches from additional words, previous queries, etc. But I think it would be crazy to prohibit competitive advertising in the first place.
    - VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
      Apple is presently suing a Swiss fruit association over its trademark on "apple". https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle...
      - ovao 3y ago
        This is false. Apple applied for a trademark of a black-and-white depiction of an apple. They aren’t suing any Swiss organization over infringement of a trademark. The Wired article makes it seem like Apple is going after someone here, but they’re ‘just’ filing for a trademark. Whether you agree or disagree with the tactics, what they’re doing isn’t what you claim they’re doing.
      - halostatue 3y ago
        Please stop spreading this incorrect version of the story. Apple is not suing anyone; it has asked for a re-ruling from the Swiss trademark authorities. As far as I have been able to see, this is based on the ownership of the Apple Corps trademark, and the Swiss fruit association is making unnecessary noise that has been amplified by the credulous because anything about Apple (Designed in California) makes for more clicks.
- jonas21 3y ago
  In fact, the FTC did the opposite, ruling that 1-800 Contacts unlawfully harmed competition when it sued competitors who bid on its name and obtained settlements preventing them from doing so. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2018/11/ftc-commissioners-find-1-800-contacts-unlawfully-harmed-competition-online-search-advertising https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2018/11/...
  - stock_toaster 3y ago
    Reading the linked judgement seems to imply there was more nuance. It seems 1800 contacts actively colluded with competitors to not cross bid on common terms, negative terms, etc. It would be interesting if this was only about “exact phrase” matches and trademarks, but it seems a bit more complicated than that at an initial scan. Please correct me if I misinterpreted the findings though.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- schemester 3y ago
  The FTC doesn’t have that power.
- vkou 3y ago
  How is it trademark violation to put up, say, Toyota billboards around the Honda dealership? Advertise the NYT in the Washington Post? Have a big freakin' Coke banner at the end of the soda aisle? Yes, this kind of advertising is a stupid zero-sum game, but our society in general, and free markets in particular have a lot of stupid zero-sum games. I see no reason why this one should be illegal.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Would Google let you target ads against its own properties?
    - jonas21 3y ago
      Uh, yes? When I search for "google cloud", I see an ad for Azure. When I search for "pixel 7", I get ads for Verizon and T-Mobile.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        I get a sponsored link for Google Cloud. And when I search for Google Pixel, I get a banner with 7 pictures and a shopping link and another link to buy a Pixel. Of course, by default I have an Ad blocker on iOS and I don’t see any ads
    - brookst 3y ago
      Why does that matter? If a Toyota dealership owns the nearby land and sells billboards, they have no obligation to sell to a competitor. People keep wanting law to work like math, and it just doesn’t. Context matters.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        Google could probably get into antitrust trouble if they were too aggressive about this.
- bagacrap 3y ago
  I mean if your site is trying to deceive visitors then sure. If I search for Nike and I get an ad for N1ke.com then yeah that's bad. But if I search for Nike and I see an ad for Adidas and I proceed to buy Adidas shoes then I guess I didn't really want Nike that much to begin with?
  - harry8 3y ago
    But 99.999% of the time someone searching for jkl corp, gets and ad for jkl corp that jkl corp paid for and clicks it because it's at the top of the results. It's PURE google protection racket money paid by jkl corp so it gets the traffic of people who want to visit jkl corp. Mafia as business model is one of the many evils that google does and is.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      Jkl corp doesn't have to buy ads. Users will still be able to find it via Google. I challenge you to find a company for which its site is not discoverable via Google search. If users who really want to go to jkl corp actually can't find it via Google, then they'll probably stop relying on Google to find things.
      - harry8 3y ago
        There are examples given in this very thread of people being conned by clicking the top link which was an ad interposed by google when someone was trying to get the website of their bank.
        emodendroket 3y ago
        But that's because of the phishing aspect. If a search for "Chase mortgages" leads me to Bank of America mortgages through an ad, there's no deception going on.
        harry8 3y ago
        so why do you think companies buy their own trade marked brands as keywords so that they can pay google for their organic traffic? Because they're idiots? Why do you think google moved the ads from the side where they were clearly marked and obviously not search results to the top of the search results and made it much harder to tell "this link is actually an ad"? I mean obviously for money but why do you think it made them money? What do you think of google's plans to offer deep discounts to advertisers for traffic from keyword searches for their brand or corporate identity? Reasonable?
- srcreigh 3y ago
  It's not extortion when the search is for Y product and the customer only knows about X brand.
MaxGabriel 3y ago
It’s also a huge vector for actual phishing, especially because google ads doesn’t use puny code, so it’s easy to buy ads for sites that differ by just a diacritic
- knodi123 3y ago
  That's how my stepdad got hacked. He didn't understand bookmarks or urls or homepages, so he just opened his browser at google.com, searched for the name of his bank, clicked the first ad, and went to log in. Usually that worked for him, but once, he got a scam site, and he was on the phone with a call center in India giving them remote desktop access before a single alarm bell went off in his head. Granted, it's partly my fault for letting a loved one be that computer un-savvy, but that kind of ad should have been detected and blocked before it was ever served.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - whoisthemachine 3y ago
    It's not your fault at all, it's not on you to un-deceive your family members, it's on Google to not deceive in the first place.
    - shortcake27 3y ago
      Agreed. There are so many failures on Google’s end to let this happen. One of which was allowing the advertiser to display a legitimate URL in the ad while redirecting to an illegitimate one. I really hope this isn’t the case any more.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      Surely he can sue Google.
tomrod 3y ago
Nah, unless the competing firm is violating trademark the ROI on those types of ads are abysmal.
duped 3y ago
It's not borderline, it is phishing.

RajT88 3y ago

I do not see it today, but some months ago if you searched for CosmosDB on Bing, you would get ads for MongoDB Atlas. Gave me a chuckle. Left hand - Right Hand.

echelon 3y ago

It feels like extortion and trademark violation. I wish the FTC would prohibit buying ads for brand names.

jrockway 3y ago
There's kind of a grey area, though. What if I want to redo the windows in my house? Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft.
- echelon 3y ago
  It's not a grey area if you're putting out an ad for a product in the same category as the registered trademark. Putting up a "Nintendo Switch" ad on the "Steam Deck" search term, and vice versa, is wrong. Even more so when big companies camp on the trademarks of smaller startups. I'm angry because this has happened to me.
- gbear605 3y ago
  Trademarks are for a given category. Apple has a trademark on “Apple” in the computing space but they don’t run up against apple orchards.
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Sure, but the point is that you have to know what category someone is search for in order to apply the ad filtering rules. If people search for "windows", Google has to take its best guess on whether you want Windows 11 or quotes on replacing your wall-holes. Even then, what counts as an ad that competes with Microsoft? Can ubuntu advertise their Windows alternative? Can an authorized reseller advertise themselves as the best place to buy a copy? This problem sounds almost impossible to me, and the cure almost sounds worse than the disease.
    - brookst 3y ago
      I suspect there are very few searches for the single word “windows”. Google probably knows the category for the vast majority of searches from additional words, previous queries, etc. But I think it would be crazy to prohibit competitive advertising in the first place.
  - VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
    Apple is presently suing a Swiss fruit association over its trademark on "apple". https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vs-apples-trademark-battle...
    - ovao 3y ago
      This is false. Apple applied for a trademark of a black-and-white depiction of an apple. They aren’t suing any Swiss organization over infringement of a trademark. The Wired article makes it seem like Apple is going after someone here, but they’re ‘just’ filing for a trademark. Whether you agree or disagree with the tactics, what they’re doing isn’t what you claim they’re doing.
    - halostatue 3y ago
      Please stop spreading this incorrect version of the story. Apple is not suing anyone; it has asked for a re-ruling from the Swiss trademark authorities. As far as I have been able to see, this is based on the ownership of the Apple Corps trademark, and the Swiss fruit association is making unnecessary noise that has been amplified by the credulous because anything about Apple (Designed in California) makes for more clicks.
jonas21 3y ago
In fact, the FTC did the opposite, ruling that 1-800 Contacts unlawfully harmed competition when it sued competitors who bid on its name and obtained settlements preventing them from doing so. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2018/11/ftc-commissioners-find-1-800-contacts-unlawfully-harmed-competition-online-search-advertising https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2018/11/...
- stock_toaster 3y ago
  Reading the linked judgement seems to imply there was more nuance. It seems 1800 contacts actively colluded with competitors to not cross bid on common terms, negative terms, etc. It would be interesting if this was only about “exact phrase” matches and trademarks, but it seems a bit more complicated than that at an initial scan. Please correct me if I misinterpreted the findings though.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
schemester 3y ago
The FTC doesn’t have that power.
vkou 3y ago
How is it trademark violation to put up, say, Toyota billboards around the Honda dealership? Advertise the NYT in the Washington Post? Have a big freakin' Coke banner at the end of the soda aisle? Yes, this kind of advertising is a stupid zero-sum game, but our society in general, and free markets in particular have a lot of stupid zero-sum games. I see no reason why this one should be illegal.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Would Google let you target ads against its own properties?
  - jonas21 3y ago
    Uh, yes? When I search for "google cloud", I see an ad for Azure. When I search for "pixel 7", I get ads for Verizon and T-Mobile.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      I get a sponsored link for Google Cloud. And when I search for Google Pixel, I get a banner with 7 pictures and a shopping link and another link to buy a Pixel. Of course, by default I have an Ad blocker on iOS and I don’t see any ads
  - brookst 3y ago
    Why does that matter? If a Toyota dealership owns the nearby land and sells billboards, they have no obligation to sell to a competitor. People keep wanting law to work like math, and it just doesn’t. Context matters.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      Google could probably get into antitrust trouble if they were too aggressive about this.
bagacrap 3y ago
I mean if your site is trying to deceive visitors then sure. If I search for Nike and I get an ad for N1ke.com then yeah that's bad. But if I search for Nike and I see an ad for Adidas and I proceed to buy Adidas shoes then I guess I didn't really want Nike that much to begin with?
- harry8 3y ago
  But 99.999% of the time someone searching for jkl corp, gets and ad for jkl corp that jkl corp paid for and clicks it because it's at the top of the results. It's PURE google protection racket money paid by jkl corp so it gets the traffic of people who want to visit jkl corp. Mafia as business model is one of the many evils that google does and is.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    Jkl corp doesn't have to buy ads. Users will still be able to find it via Google. I challenge you to find a company for which its site is not discoverable via Google search. If users who really want to go to jkl corp actually can't find it via Google, then they'll probably stop relying on Google to find things.
    - harry8 3y ago
      There are examples given in this very thread of people being conned by clicking the top link which was an ad interposed by google when someone was trying to get the website of their bank.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        But that's because of the phishing aspect. If a search for "Chase mortgages" leads me to Bank of America mortgages through an ad, there's no deception going on.
        harry8 3y ago
        so why do you think companies buy their own trade marked brands as keywords so that they can pay google for their organic traffic? Because they're idiots? Why do you think google moved the ads from the side where they were clearly marked and obviously not search results to the top of the search results and made it much harder to tell "this link is actually an ad"? I mean obviously for money but why do you think it made them money? What do you think of google's plans to offer deep discounts to advertisers for traffic from keyword searches for their brand or corporate identity? Reasonable?
srcreigh 3y ago
It's not extortion when the search is for Y product and the customer only knows about X brand.

MaxGabriel 3y ago

It’s also a huge vector for actual phishing, especially because google ads doesn’t use puny code, so it’s easy to buy ads for sites that differ by just a diacritic

knodi123 3y ago
That's how my stepdad got hacked. He didn't understand bookmarks or urls or homepages, so he just opened his browser at google.com, searched for the name of his bank, clicked the first ad, and went to log in. Usually that worked for him, but once, he got a scam site, and he was on the phone with a call center in India giving them remote desktop access before a single alarm bell went off in his head. Granted, it's partly my fault for letting a loved one be that computer un-savvy, but that kind of ad should have been detected and blocked before it was ever served.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- whoisthemachine 3y ago
  It's not your fault at all, it's not on you to un-deceive your family members, it's on Google to not deceive in the first place.
  - shortcake27 3y ago
    Agreed. There are so many failures on Google’s end to let this happen. One of which was allowing the advertiser to display a legitimate URL in the ad while redirecting to an illegitimate one. I really hope this isn’t the case any more.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Surely he can sue Google.

tomrod 3y ago

Nah, unless the competing firm is violating trademark the ROI on those types of ads are abysmal.

duped 3y ago

It's not borderline, it is phishing.