More Deceptive Term Bidding in The Spyware Space
by Wayne Porter
What You Want Is Not What You Get
02.14.2005
At SpywareGuide.com we have decided to execute a guerilla
campaign to push the envelope on search quality. It has been a growing trend
for sleazy anti-spyware vendors to openly and deceptively bid on the marks and
sites of other companies. Sometimes they do it, sometimes their affiliates do it and the vendor looks the other way. Not only could this be a violation of trademark laws,
but it is certainly deceptive as the terms they are bidding on having nothing
to do with the products they are offering. This is gross abuse of Adwords
guidelines and a diservice to consumers seeking an accurate destination.
In our new ad campaigns we have decided to bid on our own
marks and let consumers know this link will take them to our official
site. This is easy enough to verify. Simply go to Google and search for the
term ?SpywareGuide?. Sure enough you will find a number of the usual suspects
bidding on the term to pitch their anti-spyware solution. None of these ads are
sanctioned by SpywareGuide or have any affiliation with this site.
On a whim we tried an alternate route by using a common
typographical error where users type in domain name and a space followed by
?com?. Clearly the user is trying to get to SiteName.com only they have entered
SiteName Com.
We conducted some research on our own site and another
popular information portal on privacy ran by the respected Mike Healan of
SpywareInfo.com
Google Query For SpywareInfo Com
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-03%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=spywareinfo+com&btnG=Search
Google Query For SpywareGuide Com
http://www.google.com/search?q=spywareguide+com&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
pqnelhleyy 2cc8ab4a 62f8351d
Once again the usual rogues popped up, but we were very
surprised to see Yahoo! bidding on these terms to pitch their own free
anti-spyware toolbar powered by Pest Patrol. This has nothing to do with
Spywareinfo.com or SpywareGuide.com. Perhaps it isn't Yahoo! and simply their agency doing this bidding, but someone made a conscious decision to do this.
Google should be exercising better control of their
editorial guidelines. It is inexcusable to search for a product and find
numerous listings for competitive products that have absolutely nothing to do
with the product being searched for. This erodes the user?s trust in Google advertising
results; it is a disservice to legitimate vendors, and it causes problems for
vendors and consumers who suffer from this confusion. The only ones who benefit
are the rogues who lack the basic respect to stick to generic terms or their
own product terms.
Yahoo! or its agency should reconsider its bidding policy. As an
Internet leader they must lead by example. We find it a poor example that they
would take advantage of a user's poorly executed search to mislead them into
downloading their own product. Even if it is through the poor editorial work conducted by Google's Adword editors.
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