AA has sued Google over its sale of ads triggered by trademark keywords (example AAdvantage – AA’s frequent flier program). Though similar suits against the Internet giant have often ended up in Google’s favor, it is hard not to see AA’s point of view. Why have someone else enjoy the benefits of the careful work that went into making a program a success! If a searcher wanted just another frequent flier program, they would have typed up the relevant keyword. On the other hand, who’s to decide what the searcher really wanted. What if they typed up a misspelled version of the keyword; does American Airlines own all versions of the trademarked brandname?
The use of trademarked keywords
Published by
Vijay Dandapani
Co-founder and president of a New York based hotel company for 24 years. Grew the firm to five hotels in Manhattan and also developed a greenfield project at MacArthur airport, New York. Speaker at numerous prestigious forums including Economy Hotels World Asia, Lodging Conference, NYU, Columbia University Real Estate Roundtable, Baruch College's Zicklin School and ALIS. President and ceo of New York City Hotel Association since January 2017. View all posts by Vijay Dandapani
This is all very interesting. I never click on sponsored links for that very reason. I shop the brand I trust. I just did a quick search for AAdvantage and saw two other sponsored links. It’s not much different than looking up something in the yellow pages and seeing a whole lot of not what you are looking for. These brands just need to strengthen their image and I think most of the time, they won’t have to worry. I mean, how often do general frequent flier searches only to get AA?