Blog Tips - A federal court in Texas recently gave Yahoo a victory in a lawsuit filed over a dispute concerning pay-per-click ads. The case, like others filed on search ad issues, was whether Yahoo should have allowed a keyword allegedly associated with one company to trigger an ad for a rival. In this case, a Yoakum, TX based high-end meat retailer, Heartbrand Beef, said it's the only US seller of "Akaushi" beef, beef from cattle that descended from a breed originally from Kumamoto, Japan. The TX company claimed that a competitor, Lobel's of New York, used the term "Akaushi" to trigger pay-per-click ads on Yahoo. Heartbrand argued that the use of the term "Akaushi" was in fact misleading and was a "false designation of origin", which is prohibited by the federal Lanham Act.
Yahoo argued in the lawsuit that their allowing a term to be a trigger for a search ad was not a use in commerce, which the company said was required for a Lanham Act violation. Federal district court judge John Rainey of the southern district of Texas agreed with Yahoo. "Heartbrand's allegation as to Yahoo is that, at the direction of other parties, Yahoo placed a link to lobels.com in response to a user searching for the term 'Akaushi.' To call this a 'statement' would stretch the meaning of that word," he ruled.
How this impacts your blog's PPC campaigns (and your blog) should prove interesting. At the very least, this will likely open up ad opportunities for use of "terms" previously held by other firms. PPC ads remains a great way to attractive motivated consumers that are already interested in your blog niche or product. If you haven't yet, you should explore PPC at the popular search engines to gain more readers & customers. Read more PPC tips.
