Google’s U.S. Trademark Policy: Another controversial change announced

June 12, 2009
by Emma Crowe

So, who will it affect and how?

The new policy now allows resellers, component sellers and information providers to use the brand term in their ads, thus bringing Google’s policy in line with Yahoo & MSN. This will largely help resellers within the retail sector as well as finance comparison sites who may have previously been prevented from advertising products they are authorised to sell.

Will it help the user? While it does provide the searcher with more choice, it could present a more confusing marketplace with little differentiation between ads:

Big brand owners are expected to see a negative impact on their brand performance, with a loss of CTR to competitors who will now have equally compelling ads. Brand owner CPCs could rise as their quality score decreases within an inflated marketplace as brand owners are forced to ensure they do not lose traffic on their own brand term.

This is of course good news for Google since 85% of searches on the search engine are brand related but brand owners were not happy with the last trademark policy change which resulted in a four year legal battle with luxury goods manufacturer, Louis Vuitton.

Will we see the changes in the UK market?

Trademark bidding was allowed in the UK 4 years after the change in the US policy, if that follows suit we will see a change 2013. Realistically we would expect the change within next year if the impact on Google revenues is positive.