NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> WEB-AD'98 COVERAGE: 2/17/98 - TOP TEN MEDIA BUYING
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> WEB-AD'98 COVERAGE: 2/17/98 - TOP TEN MEDIA BUYING
Danny Sullivan (danny_at_calafia.com)
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 16:16:28 +0000
> I was the website marketing expert in the Insituform v. National
> Envirotech case mentioned in the Trademark Trickery article. That
> case was the classic meta-tag trademark infringement case.
With respect to Mark, there is no law banning the use of trademarked
terms in your meta tags. This issue has NOT gone to trial. Of the
three most prominent cases, two were settled (including his) and one
was given a preliminary ruling and not pursued further, to the best
of my knowledge.
None of these cases established a legal precident. Moreover, all
were based around the issue of deception, not just the use of meta
tags. In Mark's case, for example, the company sued was also using
logos and slogan to confuse people who arrived at the site, the case
alleged. In short, there is no "classic" case anyone can use as a
guide. These all remain very unique.
Unfortunately, the press attentionthat Mark happily talked about has
mostly focused on the meta tags use. It has isolated this from what
the sites have done in general. It has also led to the impression
that meta tags are some sort of secret weapon, which they are not.
First and foremost, simply including a term in meta tags is not a
guarantee that a page will to well for that term. The term will need
to be extremely unique, or else someone will have to repeat it so much
that it becomes spamming. I talk about these aspects in depth at:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/9709-oppendahl.htm
Secondly, I could easily argue that because of how search engines
work, it is necessary for me to include trademarked names in my tags.
For example, if I sell Disney movies, I may need to include Disney
trademarked terms in my tags to ensure my customers can discover my
products.
This argument could be extended to competitor terms. If I were Pepsi,
I might argue that people looking for "coke" are doing a generic
search for soft drink information, and I need to include the term coke
to ensure that my site is properly indexed (not that just using the
term would necessarily help, of course).
There are even some more technical arguments I could bring up on why
it might be necessary to include competitor names, which I won't go
into here.
Furthermore, if I were Pepsi, I could simply create a page comparing
Pepsi to Coke, perhaps the results of a survey I conducted. I have
every right to use the word Coke on that page. Furthermore, I would
have every right to use the word Coke in my meta tags in order to
properly classify the page.
The key to all of this is not over the use of a term in a meta tag.
The key is whether a company is being deceptive and trying to fool
people into coming to a site they thought was something else.
If I'm Pepsi, and I rank well for Coke, I'm probably not going to have
any problems unless I ran a description meta tag to say I was Coke or
unless I made my site actually look like Coke.
In closing, you can use trademarked terms if you want to. However,
don't expect that they will necessarily bring you tons of traffic.
Personally, I think this tactic is a waste of time.
Do expect that if you push the terms to some extreme, such as by
spamming, you may invite trouble from search engines and the
lawyers. But if you have a legitimate reason to use them, you should
be safe.
-----------------------------------
Danny Sullivan
Editor, Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com
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