Google allows
companies to use a rival's trade mark as a keyword in 190
countries
Google has modified
its AdWords trademark policy to allow bidding on trademarked
terms in 190 new countries. The policy is in line with the
same trademark policy that applies in the United States,
Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland. As of June 4th, Google
will no longer investigate complaints relating to the use of
trademarks as keywords by AdWords advertisers. This means
that in the affected regions (a full list can be found
here), a company
advertising on Google will be able to select trademarked
terms as keywords, and a user searching with a trademarked
keyword may see a greater number of relevant ads in the
sponsored links section.
The countries that this trademark
policy does not apply to are
Australia, Cyprus, Hungary, New
Zealand, South Korea, Austria, Czech
Republic, Iceland, Norway, Spain,
Bahamas, Denmark, Italy, Poland,
Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania,
Portugal, Switzerland, Brazil,
France, Luxembourg, Romania, Taiwan,
Bulgaria, Germany, Macau, Slovakia,
China, Greece, Netherlands, and
Slovenia.