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Last Friday, the 15th, Google loosened its policy on accepting trademarked keywords as search terms in its omnipresent AdWords program.  Formerly, owners of trademarks could lodge a complaint against against any other advertiser using their trademarks as search terms.  As of now, Google has officially stopped entertaining the complaints of trademark holders.  The decision, touted as a step in “reducing the number of overly generic ads that appear across our networks in the U.S.,[1]” offers more direct advertising opportunities for dealers, and increases competition for any high-profile trademarks.

From Google’s perspective, the loosening of trademark enforcement opens a significant revenue stream.  It allows resellers to narrow their search terms and more importantly compete on the same keywords as the official sites of the product or service manufacturer.  This competition for the same keyword inherently raises the cost per click (CPC) of ad placements for that keyword.  It also positions them as a better choice than Yahoo’s, and MSNs ad placements, given their current trademark policies are considerably more conservative (Yahoo’s , MSN’s )

On the other hand, while it appears Google has quite the legal footing for such a decision [1 , 2 ] trademark holders have already voiced complaint. They lose their virtual monopoly on the trademarked search keywords, and suddenly there is a larger need to trust organic search results to keep them on the front page of Google.

Personally, I applaud Google’s most recent move.  In accordance with its mission, this will actually result in a better experience for consumers.  Results for a product will not only yield the official site, but also advertising eStores offering the product.  It also strikes an egalitarian blow for smaller businesses.  Businesses unable to become one of the top ten organic search results in the world for a trademarked keyword, will now be able to appear alongside some of the largest corporations in the nation.  That seems like a good thing.