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Google cracking down on trademarks

There was a recent discussion in the Digital Point AdSense forums asking AdSense publishers how many of them have heart attacks whenever they get mail from Google's AdSense support team. Well, I didn't have a heart attack but I was certainly dismayed to get this email late last night:

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads on a site that uses a Google trademark in the domain name. As this is a violation of our policies, we've disabled ad serving to http://www.makeeasymoneywithgoogle.com/index.html.

Not that I'm that surprised, mind you, because I mentioned before that MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com appeared to be on a Google hit list. Instead of sending a large guy of Italian descent, however, they sent me an email.

Google is well within its rights, of course, because of Section 12 of the AdSense terms and conditions, which states:

If You wish to use Google's trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features ("Brand Features"), You may do so, so long as such use is in compliance with this Agreement and in compliance with Google's then current Brand Feature use guidelines, and any content contained or referenced therein, which guidelines may be found at the following URL: http://www.google.com/permissions/guidelines.html (or such other URL Google may provide from time to time).

I knew about this, of course, but I was lazy and didn't do anything about it, because it looked like Google wasn't doing anything about it — look at how many domains have “Google”, “AdSense” and other Google trademarks in them. So now I'll have to fax in the form and hope they approve it. I don't think it will be a problem for me because MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com is derived directly from my book's title Make Easy Money with Google and I'm a pretty big fan and supporter of the AdSense program, as anyone reading this site (or the book!) knows. In the meantime, I've adjusted my layout a bit to take out the ads until this is sorted out. It's a bit of a pain, but I don't make a lot of money off of that particular site anyhow (AdSense publishers don't click ads very often) and presumably in a few days I'll be able to restore things back to normal. My other sites are unaffected.

If they don't let me do it, I'll just switch to using the memwg.com domain as my primary domain and have MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com redirect to it.

But if they're cracking down on sites like mine, I assume they're also cracking down on other sites, which could cause more serious grief for others. I'll keep everyone updated on what I find out.

Eric Giguere is the AdSense expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google. Subscribe to his AdSense newsletter for more tips and advice on AdSense and content monetization.

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December 16, 2005 | Filed Under AdSense 

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