The Internet offers a vast frontier for commerce. Unfortunately, due to its nature, the Internet is ready for unscrupulous third parties to divert sales from brand owners by misleading consumers into believing that their products and services are associated with a well-known brand. Businesses must be diligent in monitoring their brands online.

How Pay Per Click Advertising Works

One of the ways diversion occurs is through pay-per-click or “PPC” advertising, as it is known in the industry. A PPC campaign is set up through Google or another search engine to bid on certain keywords that match an internet search query. In the first step, the user selects the keywords and usually sets a maximum amount or a cumulative budget for each keyword. The user then prepares a short ad for the search engine to display in the paid links or sponsors section of the search results when the keyword is searched. Search engines have changed the way these ads are displayed, so they are no longer limited to the top or right side of the screen. If everything goes according to plan, the user’s ad will redirect the search engine to another web page where services and products are offered for sale. These products and services may have nothing to do with the brands used as keywords.

Trademark infringement in PPC advertising significantly hurts brands

Because PPC campaigns are largely uncontrolled on the internet, they are particularly effective in diverting sales from brand owners, as they efficiently locate people interested in the brand and show them ads on the lists of brands. search engines. This can generate millions of dollars annually in diverted sales. This is a big problem for companies. And the problem is not limited to companies that do e-commerce. All companies that sell products or services under one brand are at risk, even if they only have traditional outlets.

In addition to deviant sales, brand owners face significant harm to their goodwill when deviant products and services are inferior to their brand equivalents. This is because the consumer is confused as to the origin of the products and services and attributes their inferior quality to the owner of the brand. Worse still, the brand owner is often unaware that this has happened and, as a consequence, cannot take steps to correct the confusion.

What should brand owners do to protect themselves?

A good first step is to register all brands and other trademarks. A trademark acts as a font identifier and can be a word, phrase, logo, slogan, or other identifier. Obtaining a federal registration provides the trademark owner with important rights, including national priority, which is very important to combat infringement on the Internet.

The company should then keep an eye on its brands by tracking search engines to see what appears in sponsored links as a result of PPC advertising or in organic elements when searching for brand names as keywords. Infringing use of trademarks in these ads must be addressed.

In certain circumstances, trademark owners may request that Google and other search engine companies prohibit the use of the owner’s trademarks in their keyword suggestion tool or in PPC ads. While the litigation is ongoing and the question of whether search engine companies may be liable for the PPC advertising infringement is not resolved, it is best to create a log of repeat requests from search engine companies to cease. the use of trademarks in their PPC advertising programs. This alerts search engine companies, which can be useful later if litigation occurs.

Finally, if all of these steps do not address the violation, it may be time to hire an attorney to file a lawsuit to stop the violation. Please visit our website for additional information on steps to protect trademarks and reduce trademark infringement.