An Indian court ruling determined Google infringed trademark rights over its AdsWords policy, which could spark a wave of other potential lawsuits.
The Delhi High Court, in India has ruled that Google infringed on the trademark rights of a bathroom fittings company by allowing rivals to use its name in advertising keywords.
In this landmark ruling, the tech giant was ordered to pay $31,600, according to Reuters.
The court said: “The manner in which Google operates its AdWords policy makes it clear that Google sells or auctions the use of the trademark […] without any authorisation from the proprietor of the trademark.”
The court agreed the use of the trademarked name as a tagged keyword amounted to an infringement – and it rejected Google’s argument that it was just an intermediary.
Ruling could trigger wave of lawsuits
The case could be seismic for search advertising as keyword stuffing and tagging is a significant portion of SEO for many businesses, with companies routinely bidding on rival brand names in order to appear higher in sponsored search results to attract potential customers.
This means brand identity could become much more significant moving forward as other smaller brands would no longer be able to piggy-back on larger brand’s success by keyword stuffing.
India is one of Google’s key markets with over $15bn investments in AI infrastructure from the search giant over the last few years. This ruling could trigger a wave of following lawsuits, which would bring online advertising practices into question, and open the door for more aggressive tactics from brands to block competitors.
Affiliate Leaders reached out to Google for a comment, but it has not yet responded.
