Re: While we're talking about the 1st amendment...

["Dude VanWinkle" <dudevanwinkle () gmail com>]

On 10/12/07, Larry Seltzer <Larry () larryseltzer com> wrote:
> Google responds. It's official: MoveOn.org is using Google's trademark
> policy to surpress criticism of them.
>
> Our trademark policy is considered one of the least restrictive in the
> industry. It strikes a balance among the interests of users, advertisers,
> and trademark owners by leaving it up to trademark owners to notify us of
> restrictions on their registered trademarks. Any entity that demonstrates to
> us that it owns trademark rights can request that its trademarked terms not
> be used in the text of Google ads.
>
> Finally, it was claimed that "Google routinely permits the unauthorized use
> of [other] company names...in advocacy ads." In fact, if ads are running on
> Google that include trademark terms in their text, either the trademark
> owner has not submitted a complaint, or the advertiser has been authorized
> to use the trademark.
>
> We are committed to fairness and freedom of expression, and we recognize
> that the nature of political advertising is to inspire debate. We look
> forward to engaging in this debate in an open and transparent fashion, and
> we encourage political candidates and campaigns to contact our elections
> team with any questions they may have about our policies.


It makes sense from Google's position: Everyone can give us money, you
just have to talk about yourself. Of course another school of thought
says that if the two parties both have to give you cash in order to
fight their PR war, then you are gonna make some serious dough
(students of that particular school of thought are granted a minor  in
Law, due to the amount of time they spend in court). I fully expect
them to re-publish the add by altering it to read something like:
stopMovingOn.org or MoveOn.biz or MoveOn.OrgyOfFreaks)

Betray that Mutha!

-JP
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