This past week, Geico settled a widely watched lawsuit it filed against Google. The terms of the settlement aren’t public, but that’s not really important. What is important for you all to know is the following:
“Google changed its trademark policy last April. Previously, a trademark owner could request Google remove the trademarked terms from its AdWords system. Under the new policy, Google only disallows the use of trademarked terms in the ad listings itself, but advertisers are permitted to bid on keywords that are trademarks.”
In other words, if someone types in yours name, Google allows competitors to bid on your name as a keyword.
