Google believes its rule change to online advertising will benefit users, despite a series of legal threats within the travel industry.
The online search giant also said it was confident its rule change, which allows companies to bid for a rival’s brand as a keyword term, was in line with UK and Irish law.
Earlier this month, Teletext and Thomas Cook threatened legal action against rival firms which continue to bid for their brands as keywords in Google searches, claiming that it infringed trademark law.
The rule change, introduced on May 5, means that rival travel firms could bid to have their ads listed when someone searches on Google for Thomas Cook, for example.
A Google spokesman said the practice had been in place in the US and Canada since 2004. Bidding was just one of the criteria used in improving a site’s prominence on Google others include quality of the website and the volume of traffic it received.
If many users click through to your site, it rises through the rankings, without the bidder having to pay more.
“We introduced this because it is good for the user experience,” the Google spokesman said. “You might walk down a shopping aisle with a particular brand in mind, but when you see all the choice you can make a better informed decision. That’s why we’ve done it.”
Google did not want to get involved with legal conflicts between rival firms, he said. “We have done a legal and business review of this decision and we feel it is in line with UK and Irish law.
“When advertisers bid for a keyword, users click on what they find most relevant to their search. If you see a competitor’s ads, then you see them because people click on them. We are not an enforcer.”
- More:Google brand name policy switch coverage (Travolution)