Google wants to attract more brand advertising dollars in search. However it also allows marketers to bid on trademarked or branded terms they don’t own or control so long as those keywords are not part of the ad copy. This practice so far passes legal muster in the US (although there’s ongoing litigation). Google recently modified its keyword bidding policies in the UK and introduced this more liberal approach to make the US and UK policies mirror one another.
British brands have threated to sue Google over the changes.
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