December 24, 2008 by Mark Isle
It’s not nice when something like this happens, is it? Two icons of the British high street locked in a legal battle, but what could it possibly be about? Why are two such resoundingly ‘nice’ brands instructing their lawyers to rip each other to pieces?
Adwords, that’s why. It seems that Marks and Spencer’s decided it was their right to bid heavily on the search terms, ‘Inter-flora,’ ‘Intaflora’ and ‘Interflora.’ These are obviously not search terms that you’d particularly associate with M&S, their sponsorship of them however, has driven up the cost of them significantly, making life harder for Interflora, an M&S competitor. It’s fair to assume therefore, that their intentions were not honourable, and in fact border on corporate sabotage.
This has happened before a few times, recently a similar lawsuit was filed by Teletext Holidays, against Direct Line Holidays.
So what does Google make of all this? Well, whilst I doubt they would come out and say it, they actually seem to support it, at least tacitly. They actually began specifically allowing it this year in May, which came as a shock to many business owners as it appears to run contrary to the whole point of registering a trademark.
Marks and Spencer’s are unapologetic, pointing out that, “This is industrywide practice and is not unlawful.”
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