• ClickZ, Friday, February 24, 2006 10:17 AM

Yahoo Search Marketing has told advertisers they will no longer be allowed to bid on competitors' trademarked keywords, effective Monday. Search advertisers had been allowed to bid on trademarked terms provided the information on their site clearly differentiated the trademarked product from their own. Yahoo this week started telling advertisers who bid on trademarked keywords that this policy would change March 1. Search marketing guru Danny Sullivan postulates that Yahoo wants to lure more big name-brand advertisers--who tend to be more sensitive about their trademarks--to search. Yahoo's new rules allow resellers and other non-competitive advertisers to bid on trademarked keywords under certain conditions: resellers must facilitate the sale of the trademarked product, while information sites have to provide substantial information about the trademark owner. Google still allows its advertisers to bid on trademarked terms, but they may not use trademarked words in the text of an ad; the company has had to settle out of court several times for its trademark policy.

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