I’ve been watching Google’s ad results for the term “itunes” for a couple of months and the results under the search term’s sponsored ads are generally for non-apple sites, advertising themselves as the “official” itunes site.

A couple of months ago a friends teenager boy asked me to help him an itunes account.  I told him to download the software and then I would come over and set the account up for him.

So I get their and he tells me he stuck.

He does not know which of the membership options to pick.

The trial weekly membership, or the monthly, or annual paid membership.

I of course tell him that itunes does not offer any such memberships, and they only charge for the material you download.

So I ask the young man what site he downloaded the software off of, and then asked how he got to that site.

He tells me he went to Google, typed the term itunes in and the first result (a paid one) was to this membership site, advertised as the “official” itunes site where he downloaded the software from.

Sure enough I typed in itunes into Google and got the same result.

A few days later the ad was gone and so was the site.  I bookmarked the URL advertised by Google and days late the site no long resolved.

A few weeks later, another site appeared as the first paid ad, with the same format, a fake Official itunes site, but using a different URL.

So I’ve been tracking this for a while, tonight I found the site www.itunesg.com.cn, being advertised as the first site advertised under the term “itunes” on Google.

The ad says:

“”i|Тunes – Official Site””

Sure the fake “official” site has the following disclaimer in fine print at the bottom of the page:

“””””iTunes is a registered trademark of Apple Computers Inc., in the U.S. and other countries.
The iTunes Music Store is a service mark of Apple Computers Inc.,registered in the U.S and other countries.
All rights reserved. Apple is not a participant or sponsor of this promotion.  iPod is registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.”””

“”””New computer users should find our services valuable and time saving. If you are an advanced computer user, you probably don’t need our services. Always Download Legally.”””

But the advertied site has the look and feel of itunes,  and even including screen shots from Apple’s itunes site.

You or I would recognize something wrong right away, but clearly millions of people wouldn’t and don’t.

Instead they pay a company for a service they can get for free.  Worse they are tricked into dealing with a site they think is Apple when they are clearly not.

So Google is selling ads under the trademarked term, itunes, with the heading “itunes-offical site”, knowing full well, the site is anything but the official Apple site.

How about Yahoo you ask.

At Yahoo the only two advertiser under the term “itunes” are 2 “fake” sites:

Of course neither of these ads go to the Apple owned site, but rather to the same type of sites selling subscriptions to access itunes software you can access for free at Apple.com.

Both sites have the same “disclosure” in fine print at the bottom of the page.

One of the sites advertising under itunes on Yahoo is: itunes.new-official.com,  again making the inexperienced users think they have arrived at the Apple site.

Sure Apple can go after these domains under UDRP’s and court actions, and groups like CADNA would jump on them as prime examples of how domainers (cybercriminals as they define it) use domains to infringe on famous trademarks, but what about Google and Yahoo which are selling ads and driving tons of traffic to these fake sites, making a good buck doing so.

I’ve read plenty of press releases from CADNA and its always about the abuse caused by domains.

I never read about the abuse I speak of going on at Google and Yahoo.

The abuse caused by selling misleading ads is much greater than someone stumbling across a misspell of a trademark term.

It poses a basic risk to Google’s and Yahoo’s creditability.

These are companies generation billions of dollars in revenue.  Certainly someone can police such misleading and fraudulent ads to protect their company, trademark holders and the domain industry.

I expect this ad will be gone shortly, maybe by the time you type itunes into the search engine, to check on this story,  but keep trying, as these ads will be replaced with another and another over the next couple of months, unless the search engines get their act together.

This is 2009 and things have to change.

For all our sakes.