The Google AdWords Blog announced that UK, Canadian and Irish AdWords advertisers can soon begin bidding on and using trademarked keywords in their ad copy. This complies with the change Google made to their trademark policy in the US in May 2009.
U.K., Canadian, Irish, U.S. and many other countries can now:
(1) Bid on trademarked keywords (2) Use the trademark word in their ad copy.
There are of course limitations:
Ads using the term in a competitive, critical, or negative way will not be allowed to run with the term at issue in their ad. Additionally, we will not allow the following:
- ads that do not lead to a landing page that clearly facilitates the sale of either the goods and services corresponding to the trademark or parts or components related to the goods and services corresponding to the trademark
- competitive or critical information about the goods and services corresponding to a trademark
- ads that do not lead to a landing page which provides substantive information about the goods and services corresponding to a trademark
When AdWords announced this in the U.S., we ran a poll and we saw that most advertisers liked the policy change. I am not sure if the UK advertisers feel the same.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
