Yahoo Requires U.S. Advertisers To Block Non-U.S. Traffic?
Boing Boing: 'Yahoo: if you use our ads, you have to block non-US visitors.'
March 23, 2006
March 07, 2006
Four Out Of Five Comparative Statements May Be Misleading
UPDATE: From the complaint: P&G sent the Crest product to 344 dentists who were asked to use the product for one week. The dentists were paid $75 to participate in a survey. 269 dentists participated in a phone survey where they were asked "Based on your experience using this oral rinse, which of the following statements best describes your most likely recommendation of this oral rinse to your patients?" According to the complaint, P&G arrived at the 4 out of 5 number by combining those who responded that they 'woud recommend' the product with those who responded that they 'would recommend only if their patients asked about it.' Pfizer alleges that this hypothetical recommendation does not consitute proper substantiation that health professionals recommend the product in their actual practice.
October 25, 2005
NY Times on Apple/Lugz Commercials
'Is Imitation Flattery, Theft or Just Coincidence?' - NY Times article on two similar commercials.
October 19, 2005
Is Paid Word-Of-Mouth Advertising Deceptive?
This letter from Commercial Alert, an advocacy organization, to the FTC, argues that 'buzz marketing' (using paid lay people to spread word-of-mouth) can be deceptive. Tidbit: Procter & Gamble reportedly has 250,000 teenagers on its WOM payroll.
Is Black Hat SEO False Advertising or Unfair Competition?
Mark Cuban (Dallas Maverick owner and founder of blog search engine Ice Rocket) posted "Get Your Blogspot Shit Together Google" yesterday, and the Wall Street Journal ran "'Splogs' Roil the Interent, and Some Blame Google,' today, regarding spam blogs or splogs, created to improve search engine rankings.
Might 'black hat' search engine optimization techniques subject a company to 43(a) or state unfair competition exposure, perhaps for false advertising?
Assume that a splogger that has no traffic and no inbound links. Then it uses SEO techniques that make it the number one hit for the relevant keyword. Has that splogger used a false or misleading descriptions of fact, or false or misleading representations of facts, in commercial advertising or promotion, that misrepresented the nature, characteristics, qualities of their goods/services? While an unknown entity is free to advertise itself, does a number one ranking in a search engine represent anything? Google argued in the Search King case that its rankings constitute commercial speech by Google as to its opinions. Does the splogger induce the search engine into making misleading commercial speech?