Who is Responsible?

Friday, December 14th, 2007 | Search Engine Optimization

The other day a collegue and I had a discussion about the ads which are presented on typosquatted and cybersquatted sites. His point was that the ad presenters, for instance Google’s AdSense platform, were responsible for trademark infringements since they made a direct profit from the ads. I, on the other hand, respectfully disagree. Although Google does profit from ads that are sitting on these cybersquatted sites (more like pages), in the end the person who set them up to run also profits. Why does this matter? Because the person who set them up to run on the pages probably also registered the [allegedly] infringing domain name. If a criminal robs a bank (an inherently illegal thing, not unlike like trademark infringement) is the manufacturer of the get away car responsible too? The car manufacturer did serve, literally as a vehicle, to aid the criminal in his act, so are they liable? Of course not! Why then would we feel that Google was responsible for serving ads on a site which was cybersquatted or typosquatted when they didn’t register the domain name?

We see the culpability that search engines feel for trademark infringements reflected in their user agreements which speak to the issue, and even their policies for the protection of registered trademark terms too.

However, search engines aren’t proactive about protecting marks, they are simply reactive and I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. Should we put more weight on search engines to protect trademarked terms? Where does it become their responsibility?

I am always a champion when it comes to acknowledging intellectual property rights and protecting brands for businesses – but just because search engines provide a vehicle for advertising doesn’t necessarily make them responsible or liable for infringements.

I think it’s up to the trademark holder to protect their brand the same way they would protect themselves against any other attack. I caution that if we hold search engines responsible for selling advertising space which contains trademark infringements – where does it stop?

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Tags: google, Registered Trademark, Search Engines, Trademark Infringement

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