Brand Names as Keywords in Sponsored Search Advertising

The business models of major Web search engines depend on online advertising, primarily in the form of keyword advertising. In recent years, a controversy has gained notoriety worldwide, in both the international court systems and the media. It concerns a form of potential “bait and switch” advertising where a consumer, searching using the brand name of one company, is presented with an advertisement by a competitor of the searched-for brand. We refer to this practice as “piggybacking.” In the U.S. in particular, the legality of this practice, and the potential liability of the search engines for contributing to trademark infringement, is unclear. However, the eventual resolutions of the issue could significantly and negatively impact the business model of Internet search engines. In this paper, we investigate the actual prevalence of piggybacking of major brands in U.S. search engines. We submitted 100 search queries consisting of top global brand names to three major search engines. Analysis of 2,350 advertisements from search engine results pages showed that just 4 percent were triggered by competitors’ trademarked terms. There was even lower use of those trademark terms in the ad text. Thus, overall competitive piggybacking does not appear to be a deceptive or widespread phenomenon. Implications for this are discussed, and suggestions for future research are presented

Implementing Smart Contracts: The case of NFT-rental with pay-per-like

Non-fungible tokens(NFTs) are on the rise. They can represent artworks exhibited for marketing purposes on webpages of companies or online stores -- analogously to physical artworks. Lending of NFTs is an attractive form of passive income for owners but comes with risks (e.g., items are not returned) and costs for escrow agents. Similarly, renters have difficulties in anticipating the impact of artworks, e.g., how spectators of NFTs perceive them. To address these challenges, we introduce an NFT rental solution based on a pay-per-like pricing model using blockchain technology, i.e., smart contracts based on the Ethereum chain. We find that blockchain solutions enjoy many advantages also reported for other applications, but interestingly, we also observe dark sides of (large) blockchain fees. Blockchain solutions appear unfair to niche artists and potentially hamper cultural diversity. Furthermore, a trust-cost tradeoff arises to handle fraud caused by manipulation from parties outside the blockchain. All code for the solution is publicly available at: https://github.com/asopi/rental-projectComment: Preprint of accepted paper of the 18th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, 202

Implementing Smart Contracts: The case of NFT-rental with “pay-per-like”

Non-fungible tokens(NFTs) can represent artworks exhibited for marketing purposes on webpages of companies or online stores - analogously to physical artworks. Lending of NFTs is an attractive form of passive income for owners but comes with risks (e.g., items are not returned) and costs for escrow agents. Similarly, renters have difficulties in anticipating the impact of artworks, e.g., how spectators of NFTs perceive them. To address these challenges, we introduce an NFT rental solution based on a pay-per-like pricing model using blockchain technology, i.e., smart contracts based on the Ethereum chain. We find that blockchain solutions enjoy many advantages also reported for other applications, but interestingly, we also observe dark sides of (large) blockchain fees. Blockchain solutions appear unfair to niche artists and potentially hamper cultural diversity. A trust-cost tradeoff arises to handle fraud caused by parties outside the blockchain. Code for the solution is available on GitHub at BLINDEDforREVIE

Pay-per-click advertising: A literature review

Digital marketing is being widely employed to efficiently and effectively market products/services to achieve increased sales and generate higher revenues. It allows businesses to effectively communicate desired content to their consumers. Pay-per-click (PPC) is one such form of digital marketing. PPC is often acknowledged for the different advantages it offers, and at the same time, it is notably criticised for fraud and other issues associated with its use. The literature on this subject, although limited, has invested considerable efforts in unveiling the pros and cons of employing PPC as a marketing/advertising strategy. This paper reviews 50 publications on PPC advertising to synthesise their findings and arrive at a common ground for understanding the digital presence and impact of this form of marketing. Alongside discussing the findings, observed limitations and opportunities for future research have been identified and reported

Trademarks as Search-Engine Keywords: Who, What, When

Most Internet searches result in unpaid (organic or algorithmic) results, and paid ads. The specific ads that are displayed are dictated by the user\u27s search terms ( keywords ). In 2004, Google began offering trademarks for use as keywords on an unrestricted basis, followed in due course by other search engines. Once that happened, any entity (including sellers of competing products) could have their ads appear in response to a search for the trademarked product. Trademark owners responded by filing more than 100 lawsuits in the United States and Europe, making the dispute the hottest controversy in the history of trademark law. Litigation has focused on purchases by competitors-giving the impression that competitors account for a large portion of such purchases. We find that competitors account for a relatively small percentage of keyword purchases, and many trademark owners purchase their own marks as keywords. We also find a high degree of fluctuation in the number of paid ads and the domain names to which those ads are linked. We conclude that the risk of widespread abuse is low. Trademark owners\u27 objections seem to have more to do with objections to free riding than with the zone of interests currently protected by U.S. trademark law

A Systematic Review on Search Engine Advertising

The innovation of Search Engine Advertising (SEA) was first introduced in 1998. It soon became a very popular tool among practitioners for promoting their websites on the Web and turned into a billion dollar revenue source for search engines. In parallel with its rapid growth in use, SEA attracted the attention of academic researchers resulting in a large number of publications on the topic of SEA. However, no comprehensive review of this accumulated body of knowledge is currently available. This shortcoming has motivated us to conduct a systematic review of SEA literature. Herewith, we searched for and collected 101 papers on the topic of SEA, published in 72 journals from different disciplines and analyzed them to answer the research questions for this study. We have identified the historical development of SEA literature, predominant journals in the publication of SEA research, active reference disciplines as well as the main researchers in the field of SEA. Moreover, we have classified SEA literature into four categories and 10 research topics. We also uncovered a number of gaps in SEA literature and provided future research direction accordingly. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol7/iss3/2

Publicité digitale et achat de clics ciblés (CPC) : Avantages et limites.

La publicité digitale est largement utilisée pour promouvoir les offres et améliorer la réputation à moindre coût et de manière efficace afin d’optimiser le rendement des campagnes, elle permet aux organisations de transmettre des informations de manière ciblées à leurs audiences avec un maximum de précision. La publicité basée sur le coût par clic (CPC) est l'une des méthodes les plus utilisés pour ce type de publicité sur Internet. Il est fréquemment loué pour les divers avantages qu'il procure, mais aussi, assez critiqué pour les fraudes et les autres problèmes liés à sa mise en œuvre. Même si les études dans ce domaine ne sont pas très nombreuses, elles ont fait des efforts considérables pour découvrir les avantages et les limites de l'utilisation du CPC comme outil publicitaire. Cette recherche examine plus de 60 articles sur ce sujet afin de consolider leurs résultats et d'atteindre une connaissance générale sur l’importance et les implications de ce type de publicité sur la communication des organisations, et décrit les résultats, les limites et les voies de recherche de cette thématique

Trademarks, Triggers, and Online Search

Internet search engines display advertisements along with search results, providing them with a major source of revenue. The display of ads is triggered by the use of keywords, which are found in the searches performed by search engine users. The fact that advertisers can buy a keyword that contains a trademark they do not own has caused controversy worldwide. To explore the actual effects of trademark and keyword advertising policies, we exploit a natural experiment in Europe. Following a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Google relaxed its AdWords policy in continental Europe in September 2010. After the policy change, Google allowed advertisers to select a third party's trademark as a keyword to trigger the display of ads, with only a limited complaint procedure for trademark owners. We use click-stream data from European Internet users to explore the effect this policy change had on browsing behavior. Based on a data set of 5.38 million website visits before and after the policy change, we find little average change. However, we present evidence that this lack of average effect stems from an aggregation of two opposing effects. While navigational searches are less likely to lead to the trademark owner's website, non-navigational searches are more likely to lead to the trademark owner's website after the policy change. The effect of changing keyword advertising policies varies with the purpose of the consumers using the trademark, and it is more pronounced for lesser-known trademarks. The article points to tradeoffs trademark policy is facing beyond consumer confusion. More generally, the article proposes a novel way of analyzing the effect of different allocations of property rights in intellectual property law

Trademarks as Search Engine Keywords: Much Ado About Something?

We report on the results of a two-part study, including three online consumer surveys and a coding study of the results when 2500 trademarks were run through three search engines. Consumer goals and expectations turn out to be quite heterogeneous: a majority of consumers use brand names to search primarily for the branded goods, but most consumers are open to purchasing competing products. We find little evidence of traditional actionable consumer confusion regarding the source of goods, but only a small minority of consumers correctly and consistently distinguished paid ads from unpaid search results, or noticed the labels that search engines use to differentiate paid ads from unpaid search results. Although we do find some evidence of confusion, the types of confusion we document do not map neatly onto the categories recognized by U.S. trademark law. Our findings suggest that the development of the doctrine in this area has not been well served by the reliance of judges on casual empiricism in resolving these disputes. Much remains to be done to ensure that trademark doctrine is empirically well-grounded, and fits the online context. Part II provides some context for this dispute, including background on search engines and keyword searches. Part III outlines the extensive litigation, both foreign and domestic, over the use of trademarks as keywords, and identifies six assumptions that judges have made in resolving these cases. Part IV presents our empirical results. Part V discusses our findings, and Part VI concludes

. Brand Names as Keywords in Sponsored Search Advertising

The business models of major Web search engines depend on online advertising, primarily in the form of keyword advertising. In recent years, a controversy has gained notoriety worldwide, in both the international court systems and the media. It concerns a form of potential ―bait and switch ‖ advertising where a consumer, searching using the brand name of one company, is presented with an advertisement by a competitor of the searched-for brand. We refer to this practice as ―piggybacking. ‖ In the U.S. in particular, the legality of this practice, and the potential liability of the search engines for contributing to trademark infringement, is unclear. However, the eventual resolutions of the issue could significantly and negatively impact the business model of Internet search engines. In this paper, we investigate the actual prevalence of piggybacking of major brands in U.S. search engines. We submitted 100 search queries consisting of top global brand names to three major search engines. Analysis of 2,350 advertisements from search engine results pages showed that just 4 percent were triggered by competitors ‘ trademarked terms. There was even lower use of those trademark terms in the ad text. Thus, overall competitive piggybacking does not appea