decision<\/a> (PDF), delivered by a division bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Amit Mahajan last week, observed that Google was an \u201cactive participant\u201d in the use of the trademarks of proprietors. Google\u2019s practice of suggesting competitors\u2019 trademarks as keywords to advertisers yielded significant profits for the search giant via keyword sales.<\/p>\nThis case was spurred by a complaint from logistics firm DRS, which pointed out that searches for its trademark \u201cAgarwal Packers and Movers\u201d returned competitor websites. DRS alleged that Google\u2019s ad mechanism exploited its trademark to divert users to rival sites.<\/p>\n
Upholding the initial order, the division bench directed Google to act on DRS\u2019s grievances and eliminate offending ads. This verdict implies that platforms like Google must introduce novel systems to address such trademark concerns continually.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the worst ways to spend money as a business is to advertise against your own keywords,\u201d said Nithin Kamath, founder and chief executive of trading platform Zerodha, of the ruling in a thread on social media X. \u201cBusinesses do this because if they don\u2019t, competitors who advertise for their keywords show up above them in search results. So if you search for Zerodha, an ad from a competitor might show up above the organic search result. Many times these ads can be deceiving as well. This perverse situation was the result of the lack of trademark protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s assertion that Google is not a \u201cpassive intermediary\u201d but runs an advertisement business, over which it has \u201cpervasive control,\u201d comes as a significant blow to the tech giant.<\/p>\n
\u201cMerely because the said business is run online and is dovetailed with its service as an intermediary, does not entitle Google to the benefit of Section 79(1) of the IT (Information Technology) Act, in so far as the Ads Programme is concerned,\u201d the bench ruled.<\/p>\n
While Google argued its position as an intermediary entitled it to \u2018safe harbour\u2019, the bench said they found no issue in the prior single judge\u2019s order, which suggested that the \u201cbenefit of safe harbour under Section 79(1) of the IT Act would not be available to it\u201d if they were found guilty of trademark infringement.<\/p>\n
This decision casts a shadow on the tech giant\u2019s advertising operations in one of its largest markets.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Delhi High Court has ruled that Google\u2019s Ads Programme falls under the purview of the trademarks act, meaning the search giant\u2019s use of trademarks as keywords amounts to \u201cuse\u201d under the act, in a major decision that may redefine online advertising\u2019s legal landscape. The decision (PDF), delivered by a division bench of Justice Vibhu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}