Judge Blanche Manning of the Northern District Federal Court in Illinois ruled that there was sufficient cause to move forward in the case brought by Vulcan Golf. For anyone that follows my thoughts on this they might remember that I believe that Google profits from, enables and in part created the typosquatting problem. Google:

“pays registrants for its use of the purportedly deceptive domain names … uses semantics technology to analyze the meaning of domain names and select revenue maximizing advertisements and controls and maintains that advertising”

What was not said is that Google profits from this action.

Online Media Daily Reports - Wendy Davis

If I search myself on Google and find a cyber-gripe site about me and end up getting attacked because some crazy person found it and decided they wanted me dead - is Google also to blame because they indexed the site?

What if my biggest competitor runs an ad on prime time TV openly misleading the population about my company and product and sells the same thing with a typo’ed version of my product name - is CBS responsible?

I think we create a slippery slope when we are allowed to place blame, or cast a net of liability, regarding trademark infringement to search engines. The advertising and keywords that they put up are really just user-generated content when you boil it down - and more and more websites are insulating themselves from any liability whatsoever from user-generated content.

Just look at MySpace and your favorite networking sites. Simply saying - “But! Google (or MySpace) let me put it up! Why isn’t it their fault?” is not an excuse - my mom would say, if Google told you to jump off a bridge, would you?

On this issue, I stand on the side which feels that it’s up to businesses, and their representatives, to protect their brands, and feel that a reactive position by search engines with policies which remove the infringement, protect a trademark, and remove indexed pages from their cache is appropriate.

Web 2.0 is ALL about user-generated content and vamped up advertising platforms and I don’t think this issue (and the ones related to it) is going away any time soon.

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?

This is one of my hot topics that I follow. I have been watching for well over a year, maybe two, and it is building momentum and getting more press on a regular basis.

My theory is that ad serving provider, Google™ and Yahoo, have huge liability exposure to this as they profit directly from the sale of ads on these sites.
Dell Takes Cybersquatters to Court
PC Maker Alleges Domain Registrars Profited on ‘Confusingly Similar’ Names

By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 28, 2007; 4:06 PM

Personal computer giant Dell Inc. is pursuing a major “cybersquatting” lawsuit against several companies that buy and sell Web site addresses, alleging that the entities earned millions of dollars from Internet traffic intended for Dell and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.

Dell Takes Cybersquatters to Court
Washington Post - United States
The Washington Post examined Google’s connection to the typosquatting industry in a story published in April 2006. Google maintains that it specifically …
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