Google faces class action law suite for selling trademark keywords

Google’s landed into quagmire after facing a class action suite over infringement of trademarks. The search engine major encourages the advertisers to purchase other companies’ trademarks as targeted search term. Google has expanded this practice to over 190 countries. This came after allegations were raised by Audery Spangenberg, CEO of a SaaS company who found Google using the trademark of her company Firebond as a term for sale. Anyone searching for the keyword lands up on the sponsored links of her competitors that appear on the top of Google search results. Spangenberg sued Google for infringement of the trademark as a lead plaintiff of a class action against Google on behalf of all Texas trademark holders. According to the legal experts of The Times, Trademark infringement is a fact-specific inquiry into whether the alleged infringement causes confusion, the federal court might not certify the class.

On it’s part Goolge made it clear that even if the trademark holders are not taking it easily, the plan is completely legitimate. According to attorney Terrence Ross who represented American Airlines in a trademark infringement case against Google, the case seems more of a protection racket. He further adds

I know of several companies spending millions of dollars a year in payments to Google to make sure that their company is the very first sponsored link.

The IT firms or hotel chains would be bidding higher prices to stay at the top of Goolge pages.

The crisis can be clearly anticipated as a result of Google’s monopoly over search engine market. Now that Google is selling the use of a company’s trademark to its competors there seems no choice for the companies other than paying Google the price to stay on top.