Can a competitor legally ask me to stop my PPC campaign?

[techrealm]

If this is a stupid question or answered already please let me know, I am kinda on a tight line right now...

Can I use my competitors name as a PPC key word if it is generic enough?

A major competitor is trying to get me to stop targeting their domain name in my keywords. I have used their domain name with out the tld only in the ppc engines. The ads shown for us are of the "Another Opportunity?" type of link. Is this legal and worth doing? These appear to be highly targeted keywords that do generate calls and sales -- it also causes the competitor to sweat tremendously now that they have noticed (after 2 years) and that is good. But this looks much more like a dangerous borderline trademark case. I believe either the bosses can negotiate something, or the lawyers could fill their own pockets.

Getting legally advised will occur I am sure but I am also looking to see if others have had similar issues. Also note that the keyword used also describes the process used by the products. That is how overture accepted my bids.

The exact keyword "we make things" is not listed in the trademark databases. However it is listed in the format "we-make-things". Their domain name is wemakethings.com, net, org and (gasp) we-make-things.com which defaults to the famous IIS index page... yep they are paying attention. Another neat piece of info is that we manufacture their equipment... And this came up in a new contract negoiations they want to do so we are trying to see if we have any ground to stand on to bargain on dropping the PPC keyword for a price. (Now "I" need legal advice )

After review of the last 4 months of logs we found that the PPC key word came to our site in three distinct phrases: 1. "we make things" 2. "wemakethings" and 3."we-make-things". The leads from 2 and 3 equal the amount of 1.

The search is on for legal and financial repercussions of keeping vs. dropping the keywords to backup a opinion on that as well...

Any ideas or recommendations for legal counsel?


<edited to add a stupidity clause and clarification to initial question>

 

[techrealm]

OK since I had no replies I made this up as I went

I guess I will see where this ends up...


Good day,

As of November 7, 2002, by request we removed all keywords / meta-tags that refer to We-Make-Things from any online ad sources. At this point any residual search engine results that have “we%20make%20things” or similar results in the resulting sponsored url section are not current and do not reflect our current unpaid or paid advertising desires and objectives.

Also on numerous sites results that are not of the paid nature, a third party reviewer placed our results in the same categories, this is not possible to change in most every case.

As well there are search results that indicate our sites contain similar products and offerings. This is a reflection of search engines algorithms and not due to keyword/meta tag targeting of "WMT" name variations. While this may be disconcerting at first, careful examination of the link should find that it is not due to a current practice of targeting "WMT" name variations.

A review of the following keywords:
1. we make things
2. we-make-things
3. wemakethings

Found that out of the 285 separate visits that were received by these three keywords combined (out of over 50k other seperate visits), no apparent or even indirect connection to a visit and a resulting sale could be made.

As a result of the changes, I am monitoring the keywords and will do what I can to remove the offending search results, but this reverse method of removing results is not infallible and due to technical or many other reasons may never result in complete removal of the information from the web.

Any results that are found to be targeting specifically those keywords should be brought to my attention so we can determine the source and have them removed.

Regards,
TechRealm

"If all else fails, blame the webmaster..."
<edited for readability>

 

[Silverwire]

I'm not a lawyer.

I suspect your lack of response may be somewhat due to your first post not really containing enough information. "We make things" sounds generic enough in most circumstances, however, if you're competitor has an enforceable trademark on a very close version, then you are probably infringing. What's enforceable? That's a judgment call that requires a lot more information.

Anyway, for 285 leads out of 50K that resulted in no sales, and the competitor also being a (potentially) important customer too, it seems like a no brainer that you have done the right thing. Your posts seem conscientious, so I'm sure doing the right thing was your intention.