Google has been cleared of misleading web users in a court case brought by an Australian watchdog that accused the Chocolate Factory of mixing adverts into search results. However, Trading Post – the country's top online classified advertising site – was rapped for buying ads on Google using keywords for brands it didn't own. …

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Thursday 22nd September 2011 10:56 GMT John G Imrie

I think the court got this one right.

Otherwise I could claim against the company that resurfaced the road out side my house when some idiot spins his jag of the road in the wet and ends up in my front room.

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Thursday 22nd September 2011 12:42 GMT Destroy All Monsters

Stop Press: Court not considering people idiots in need of pampering by elites!

"The remarkable observation that people are probably smart enough to distinguish between organic search and advertising links, even if the latter are ambiguously labeled."

Holy shit, Batman, smart and media-savvy people on my Internets?

Still, it's qualified by "probably" and "remarkably", so default assumption are still being held, unremarkably.

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Thursday 22nd September 2011 12:43 GMT Purlieu

Rubbish

In order to buy those keywords, somebody has to sell them.

357 pages, for when 356 just isn't enough

(downvoters take the trouble to explain yourselves please)

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1. Thursday 22nd September 2011 13:54 GMT Marcelo Rodrigues
  
  Ok, I´ll bite.
  
  Google doesn´t sell THE words. It sells the ranking for the words. Couldn´t be done another way - as Google never pretended to own the words.
  
  So, someone comes and say: "hey, Google! I would like to pay for your service of showing first a site, when people search for some words!".
  
  What Google should do? Run a full validation of each term, by each client? Look trough the legal system, to find who can do what with wich words?
  
  What if I am beeing paid to advertize your business? I would not own the brand - but would be within my rights to use the words!
  
  No, on this account Google is innocent. It is the one who "bought" the words who is in the wrong here.
  
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