American Airlines seeks damages from Google

[fasixsharks]

The airline says it doesn't want to prevent the display of search terms but wants Google to stop selling its trademarks.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- American Airlines, the world's largest airline, said Friday it was seeking damages from Internet search leader Google Inc. for selling search words involving its name.

The dispute relates to Google's practice of selling search terms, such as "American Airlines" or "AA.com," to other companies for advertising.

American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp. (up $0.14 to $22.61, Charts, Fortune 500), said it does not want to prevent the display of search terms, but wants Google to stop selling its trademarks and related terms.

"We are seeking relief for the damages such practices are creating," the company said in a statement. It didn't estimate the amount of damages.

Google (up $8.29 to $499.81, Charts, Fortune 500) believes it's on solid ground.

for detail click here

[Atomic0]

This problem seems to be quite widespread, with many companies using their competitior's trademarks and names as keywords to attract consumers to their site. Although this is against the Terms of Services, it seems that Google has not implemented a more advanced system of checking keywords of search result ads.

[adamsky.net]

yep... but what about if for example i've got an internet shop selling, let's say, Nike shoes. It's obviouse that using "nike" in my adwords campaign will bring much more targeted visitors to my shop than just "sport shoes" phrase, right?

so, nike-lovers will come to my shop, buy the shoes and I'll be happy and make some money and Nike ALSO be happy and make more and more sales...

IMHO such a practice shouldn't be prohibited at all, it's in the common business for both sides - the company and the advertiser, and I really don't care that google makes some money out of it - that's me who's paying them, not the company. And more - this way companies like Nike or American Airlines get themselves FREE advertising!

I really cannot find any GOOD reason to stop this practice...