Google’s newest policy concerning bidding on trademarked slogans for AdWords purposes has come under fire. French insurance company AXA has filed suit against the search engine for allowing others to bid on keywords that AXA has trademarked.

As reported in webproworld earlier, Google revised their policy concerning trademarked slogans, allowing potential customers to bid on keywords, regardless if they were trademarked or not. This policy is limited to companies located in Canada and the US.

Google’s policy concerning keywords that are trademarked says, “Please note that we will not disable keywords associated with trademark usage. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.” This statement is taken from Google’s Trademark Complaint Procedure page.

This policy is not permitted outside of the US and Canada. “When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using the trademarked term in the ad text or as a keyword trigger. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the ad text or keyword list and will prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in the future.”

AXA’s case centers on the use of trademarked AdWords. According to TheRegister.com, “AXA claims that Google users searching for ‘AXA’ or ‘direct assurance’ were shown ads from rival insurers alongside search results.” The AdWords in question are “AXA” and “direct assurance”.

An initial hearing is scheduled in Paris for May 10, 2004.

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