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TheDomains.com

1st Trademarks, Now Wisconsin Court Says Its Ok To Buy Keyword Ads Under A Persons Name

June 12, 2011 by Michael Berkens

There have been quite a few cases brought against advertisers for buying keyword ads under a trademark term but a Wisconsin Court just rejected an argument that buying a keyword under a persons name violated their right to privacy.

In the case  Habush v. Cannon, the defendants a personal injury law firm bought ads under the keywords of  two of their competitors’ last names (“Habush” and “Rottier”).

The Plaintiffs, not having a trademark rights  in their name, claimed a the ads violated their right of privacy and asked the court to issue an injunction.

Wisconsin court ruled that a keyword advertiser didn’t violate publicity rights by buying a person’s name for keyword advertising

“The defendants used plaintiffs‘ names for advertising and trade purposes without the plaintiffs‘ consent. Thus, plaintiffs have established that, under Wis. Stat. § 995.50, defendants invaded their privacy.” but the added that the plaintiffs must also show that the defendant’s use was “unreasonable.”

The court then explains why a “privacy invasion” by buying keywords ads was reasonable in this case, including:

“positioning keyword ads by organic results is analogous to competitive adjacencies, such as competitors locating their stores next to each other and advertisers bidding against each other for prime positions in Yellow Pages. ”

“users aren’t confused by keyword ads nor did the plaintiffs show any confused consumers, consumers scan the results page to find what they are looking for, and any confusion they experience will be brief.”

“Internet users, and consumers in general, have learned to be skeptical about the first impression they may receive from a web page or commercial advertisement.”

Really?

I think people are still responding to spam, phishing and other schemes that most of us would recognize immediately as something that should not be responded to.

People still buy stuff they see advertised on TV promising to take 20 lbs off of you with no diet or exercise.

People still fall for every get rich quick deal, they think their elected officials are not engaged in illicit behavior.

You get the idea.

By placing an link in a certain spot on a page people know its an ad?

Of course there is still no explanation how if anyone registered the domain name containing the law firm names and then served up ads on them they would be have their domain take away but if its just an ad on Google its Ok.

 

Filed Under: Legal

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

« Lawsuits: Google Sued For Trademark Infringement Over Its New ChromeBook: Apple Sued Over iCloud
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Comments

  1. Mitch says

    June 12, 2011 at 10:12 am

    People still send gold jewelry in a prepaid envelope not knowing exactly what they’ll get for it.

  2. LS Morgan says

    June 12, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    “Internet users, and consumers in general, have learned to be skeptical about the first impression they may receive from a web page or commercial advertisement.”
    —

    lol

  3. BullS says

    June 12, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    To All and LSmorgan…that why you should make “BullS” your homepage.

    Again-all websites (except TheDomains.com) are BS….scammy, useless and time waster.

    If you see the “BullS” signature on your site, it means it met the approval of authenticity.

  4. amusia says

    June 12, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    agree with mhb.

    on what evidence are they basing these findings about consumers? we know that spammers and other web marketers collect and use data on consumer behaviour. does the court ever see this data?

    how does the court know whether consumers are confused or not?

    that said, looks like yet another local competitor spat that took to the web, with one party or both behaving unreasonably- i.e. another waste of some court’s time.

    how old are these law firms? if they had any reputation, what about common law trademark?

    the word of the day is: mesol… whatever. asbestos poisoning. this word of the day is brought to you by the law firm of saul rosenberg.


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