Apple Cracks Down on Google AdWords

Not long ago, someone pointed out that we used to think of Apple as an enlighted company, the very antithesis of Microsoft, and at one time that might have been true; but now it seems to be clearer with each passing day that, were Apple to grow significantly, it could very well out-Microsoft Microsoft. It's sad, really.

-- Stephen Moye

Google recently pulled my Adwords ad for Quark because I stated in the Ad that it was for "Win or Mac"

I'm in the UK BTW

Regards

Huw

Didn't Apple recently crack down on the use of "iPod?" I thought they wanted to start licensing companies to use a "Made for iPod" type logo/symbol/text. Maybe this is an arm of that to get everyone to pay up??

Hi Adam,

Nice article; although I really hoped you had found a solution to this stupid situation.

I got same notice (we make mac-compatible mpeg encoding hardware) and the same lame responses from Google, and finally gave up.

I edited all our ads to use the word Macintosh instead, and so far that's working. But it's a royal pain to have to fit that long word in those tiny text ads.

Mike Evangelist Wired Inc.

tidbits-talktidbits.com

We never seem to learn....when you turn your business over to the lawyers
and accountants, you're on your way to going out of business. I surely
hope
Apple doesn't go out of business as life wouldn't be nearly as much fun
without their products. But, I wish they'd stop making our support of
their
products so hard to do.
Regards

Albert

On Oct 4, 2005, at 11:31 PM, Brian Pearce wrote:


>> Not long ago, someone pointed out that we used to think of Apple
>> as an
>> enlighted company, the very antithesis of Microsoft, and at one
>> time that
>> might have been true; but now it seems to be clearer with each
>> passing day
>> that, were Apple to grow significantly, it could very well out-
>> Microsoft
>> Microsoft. It's sad, really.
>>
>
> You may not be aware that in Trademark Law, the burden is on the
> owner of a trademark to defend and control it's use -- that's part
> of the responsibility that comes with owning a piece of
> intellectual property like that. Given that we still don't even
> know what steps Apple has taken on this issue, I think it's a bit
> too soon to make such sweeping statements.
>

I agree that it is much too early and with so little information to
be making sweeping judgments.

 From the perspective of trademark protection, though, I can see how
Apple might get nervous about the "iPod" becoming a generic product
noun (like Kleenex) given the kind of market dominance and mind share
it currently enjoys. With phrases like "podcasting" in general
circulation it might be argued that "iPod" was headed precisely in
that direction. So, perhaps Apple might be forgiven for getting
tough on the use of the word "iPod".

The name "Mac", on the other hand, hardly has that problem. So
perhaps Apple might have been more surgical and tactful in its legal
response. Though even with respect to the "Mac" brand, the current
move by Apple might be a preemptive strike. Once the Intel Mac
arrives, you know that someone will figure out a way to run it on non-
Apple hardware, and some PC vendor will sell PCs bundled with the
enabling software as being "Mac-compatible". When that happens,
Apple would like to have the precedent of having defended its
trademark vigorously.

Tn

FYI, they also got rid of all domain names that have 'iPod" in them

http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08272

This just recently happened to us in the US also.

We went beta two weeks ago with http://www.flavorsofa.com/

It's a service that allows you to bill for your time on iChat AV.

We wanted to use Google to advertise it to people who type in
iSight, iChat, etc.

Our ads SPECIFICALLY mentioned Mac, iChat, iSight, etc. in an
effort to isolate the negative effects of someone who cannot
possibly use the service clicking on the ad naively and costing
us money.

Bam. Rejected.

We've spent two years in patenting, designing, and creating
this Apple specific technology, limiting ourselves to less than
3% of the worldwide computer marketplace.

Thanks Apple! You guys are making us wonder if we made the right
choice.

--
-- Tom Mornini

At 08:24 AM 10/07/2005 -0700, Drew wrote:
>FYI, they also got rid of all domain names that have 'iPod" in them

This claim seems to be supported by the renaming of ipodlounge.com to
ilounge.com. One of the biggest sites evangelizing iPods, and Apple's
marketing geniuses apparently put their foot down: can't have anyone
evangelizing for iPods.

Ever hear of Burroughs, or of Sperry aka Univac? They were once the B and U
of "IBM and the BUNCH". Burroughs and Sperry merged back in the 1980s. Both
companies had some excellent ideas in hardware and software, which carried
them forward for a while. But the most effective part of the merger has
always been the combining and strengthening of their respective Sales
Prevention Departments. The merged company has been known as Unisys for
almost 20 years now ... heard of them lately? They still have really good
hardware and software. Remember what a really effective Sales Prevention
team can do. The methods of the Burroughs / Sperry / Unisys SP teams are
different from what the Apple SP team seems to be doing, but the attitude
sure sounds familiar. Too early to tell whether the result will also be all
too familiar ...

Edward
Art Works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

Hi Adam,

My ads containing the word 'mac' are still blocked and when I resubmit the term 'mac' is still blocked for trademark reasons. Though I could request an exception and see where that gets me, it appears that google is still monitoring the term 'mac' as otherwise resubmitting the ad should have not triggered the trademark block again.

Cheers,

david. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- David Niemeijer, CTO AssistiveWare(R) D.Niemeijerassistiveware.com http://www.assistiveware.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------

At 7:52 AM -0700 10/12/05, David Niemeijer wrote:
>My ads containing the word 'mac' are still blocked and when I
>resubmit the term 'mac' is still blocked for trademark reasons.
>Though I could request an exception and see where that gets me, it
>appears that google is still monitoring the term 'mac' as otherwise
>resubmitting the ad should have not triggered the trademark block
>again.

I heard from one other person for whom this was true, but I was able
to create a new ad with "Mac" and "Macintosh" with no trouble
(whereas all other Apple trademarks were still a problem). I'd
definitely recommend requesting the exception and/or changing the
geographic distribution to avoid parts of the EU.

cheers... -Adam

--
New Take Control ebooks! ........... http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
      My latest ebook, "Take Control of Your Wi-Fi Security," is out!
_____________________________________________________________________
Adam C. Engst: I publish TidBITS, write books, and make sure the
acetidbits.com right people know each other in the Mac industry.
Me: http://www.tidbits.com/adam/ TidBITS: http://www.tidbits.com/

> I heard from one other person for whom this was true, but I was able
> to create a new ad with "Mac" and "Macintosh" with no trouble
> (whereas all other Apple trademarks were still a problem).

Just as a follow-up, I'm now seeing Google ads with
"Ipd" (intentionally misspelled) and "Ipod" with an "®" (indicating a
registered trademark). I've forgotten now what Google's position on
"ipod" is -- I wonder if Google is intentionally letting these
through, or just isn't catching them?

  BRIAN/bpearcecloud9.net
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