25 April 2008

Lastminute attacks Google over trademark rights

Google came under fire yesterday from lastminute.com following its decision to take away trademark rights in the UK.

The radical change, which will see the search engine no longer blocking advertisers from bidding on any branded keywords, could mean prices go through the roof for major UK brands.

Lastminute chief executive officer Ian McCaig told the search engineÃ¢â¬â¢s managing director of advertising and marketing Rob Torres at LondonÃ¢â¬â¢s Travolution Summit: "There is a lot of disappointment, hurt and pain around how this has been done."

He added: "We have spent ten years building up the brand and it is my assessment that this is going to cost me a seven figure sum in euros a year."

Torres responded that Google had made the decision based around the view that its aim was to improve the user experience.

He said: "A lot of suppliers felt that we were trying to hurt them when we did this in the US. But we have to say Ã¢â¬Ëœwhat is our mission?Ã¢â¬â¢. Well we are in the business because of our users. We are continually trying to improve the user experience for them.

"That said, the new decision is really about user choice and making sure that everyone is represented. What we have found is that there has been very little concern by suppliers in the US.

"The Google model is not a pay to play one. If you are the brand owner, your relevance will come up as higher than someone elseÃ¢â¬â¢s so you are going to come higher up on GoogleÃ¢â¬â¢s auction process."

He added: "Yes, there will be fly-by-night operators but they will pay so much for clicks that they wont be able to substantiate this in the long term - that has what we have seen in the US."

*See linked Travolution Summit report and TravelMole's e-Wire.

by:Dinah Hatch

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Your Comments (3)

So why are they bidding on my brand!

I have sympathy from Lastminute and am quite happy not to bid on the brand...so long as they stop bidding on superbreak.com, which they commenced doing Sunday night. So GET OFF! Google do have a responsibility to help the user get a good result; and allowing rubbish affiliate links (we have 2 dead links bidding on our brand name) or allowing competitors to confuse the user (and dont forget, users are gullible; research today suggests 50% dont know how to email for goodness sake)Perhaps the travel industry can be mature and sensible and not waste money brand bidding where the client is missled and all we are doing is giving away easy bucks to Google?

By David Ranby, Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Stones & Glass Houses.?

I suppose that throughout the 10 years mentioned, Last Minute.Com have never once bid on a competitors brand.? Especially ones with a lot less money then themselves.? It's no good moaning about Google when you've been doing the same thing for years via them.!

By gary hewitt, Monday, April 28, 2008
Google is abusing its power and is hiding behind the excuse of 'consumer choice'

It's not about consumer choice, it's about Google wanting more revenue by enabling bidding on very well known and very often trademarked brand names. Lastminute may have taken 10 years to build their brand - well it has taken us 38 years to build Sunvil and it is trademarked. So what is the use of trademarking? The web is being taken over by the rich and powerful. Larger competitors can afford to bid on the Sunvil name but we could not, in turn, afford to bid on theirs. We have written to the OFT about this and many other AITO companies are taking the same action. It's interesting that Google are only allowing this in the UK and not in the rest of the EC. Why not? Why spend money on a trademark if it now affords no protection at all?

By Noel Josephides, Friday, April 25, 2008