Google weighs options after legal decision

Internet search engine Google said on Monday that it was weighing a possible appeal after a Paris court ordered it to pay $260 000 (about R1,6-million) plus costs to luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton for breach of trademark.

The high court in central Paris awarded the damages in a decision late on Friday and ordered Google to stop displaying advertisements for Vuitton's rivals whenever Internet users typed Vuitton's name or other trademarks into the search engine.

The case centered on Google's AdWords program. This allows advertisers to bid for high responses in the "Sponsored Links" areas of Google search returns. Google does not restrict the words that advertisers can bid on. Ford, for example, could target an advertisement to appear when people searched for Chevy. The French courts have determined that this is trademark infringement on Google's part.

Um...what?

American companies are also suing Google for the same thing. In the NPR piece where I first heard this story the corporate talking head likened it to ordering a Coke in a restaurant and being given a Pepsi. Uh...no. In that scenario it would be ordering a Coke and having the waiter say "We also have Pepsi". Or, more accurately, saying in a loud voice "OF COURSE WE HAVE COKE!" then following that with a subdued voice "We also have Pepsi, and they pay us to tell you that". You see, the advertisements are clearly marked as "sponsored links".

The talking head also mentioned that people were being misled by Google because they didn't understand that a sponsored link meant that it was paid advertising.

Um...what?

Are people that stupid? I'll did a quick survey to find out. I asked "What does 'sponsored by' mean?" Here are the responses:

Bear (age 5): "It's like when the show is by Coca-Cola cause they pay for it or the football game is brought to you by Chevy Trucks."

I stopped there. If my five year old has a basic understanding of sponsorship I'm going to give the average person the benefit of the doubt.

The Google rep had a much better example of what Adwords would be like in the real world. He compared it with an advertiser buying a billboard for a company in the parking lot next to their competitor.

So far American courts have sided with Google but we are still affected by the French court's decisions:

The latest Paris ruling against Google applies to all its sites, not just its French Google.fr page.

Searches for "Louis Vuitton" and "Vuitton" conducted on Monday on the main Google.com portal yielded none of the usual "sponsored links" for other companies.

Thanks a lot, France. Your judicial idiocy will help to stifle corporate growth and competition while limiting information dissemination to consumers. Way to go!