Google wins in trademark suit with Geico
Not quite sure how thrilled I am about this one. Google won it’s trademark suit with Geico. The gist of it is that other insurance companies can purchase the keywords “Geico” and “Geico Direct” and have links to their companies appear as ads along the right hand side when someone searches. My big fear is that these Sponsored Links that currently reside alont the right side may eventually creep their way into the main list of returns for the search. Like I said in my podcast, I want to make sure that searches remain as unbiased as possible, something that Google has definitely made a priority of in the past. Now that they’re a publicly traded company though, you never know when things might change. If those sponsored links start getting mixed in with the actual search returns, then things are going to get mighty confusing for students, even if they are “clearly labeled”.
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I know this is an old post but do you know how things have progress from this outcome ? Beside the fact that Google is now bigger than all the other search engines combined…
Morgan
6/18/2011
That would be a nightmare if the paid ads starting getting mixed with the regular searches. Let’s face it though the Big ‘G’ has control over everything.
Jabin
6/28/2011