Trademark Complaint Procedure

As a provider of space for advertisements, please note that Google is not in a position to arbitrate trademark disputes between the advertisers and trademark owners. As stated in our Terms and Conditions, the advertisers themselves are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. Accordingly, we encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites.

As a courtesy to trademark owners, however, we are willing to perform a limited investigation of reasonable complaints. When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using the trademarked term as a keyword trigger. If they are, we disable those keywords from the ad campaign. Please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Furthermore, please be aware that we do not take any action in situations where an advertisement is being triggered by non-trademarked terms even though the search query contains a trademarked term. This stems from the fact that Google allows advertisers to use a broad matching system to target their ads. For example, if an advertiser has selected the keyword shoes, that advertiser's ad will appear when a user enters the word "shoes" as a search query, regardless of other search terms that may be used. So, the ad would show if the user entered any of the following search queries: "tennis shoes," "red shoes," or "Nike shoes." This system eliminates the need for the advertiser to specify individually the many different search query combinations that are relevant to their ad.

If you are a trademark owner (or represent a trademark owner) and have an objection to an advertiser's use of your trademark as a keyword or in ad text that is consistent with the foregoing, please provide the following information in a signed letter on company stationary:

Name of Company
Contact information (including email address)
List of trademark(s) at issue and the country/countries in which it is registered
The identity of the advertisement(s) at issue (via the URL stated on the bottom line of the ad)
Are you concerned with:
1. the advertisement's content, or
2. the keywords that trigger the advertisement, or
3. both?
If your site has an affiliate program, are affiliates permitted to use the trademark as a keyword or in the advertisement's content?
Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the trademarks described above with the advertisements described above is not authorized by the trademark owner or its agent, nor is such use otherwise permissible under law."
Include the following statement: "I represent that the information in this notification is true and correct and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the trademark owner."
Your signature.

Please send this written communication with the above information to the following address:

Please Note: The foregoing procedure applies only to the use of trademarks in advertisements, which are clearly marked as sponsored links on our results pages. We do not take action on objections to the use of trademarks in sites that appear in our search results, i.e., the left-side of a results page. For any such objections, please contact the site owner directly.

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