I’m sure you have received spam advertising promoting programs that promise that you can make money at home using Google Adsense.
Yesterday, Google filed a federal lawsuit in district court in Utah, alleging that Pacific WebWorks and other companies, infringed on Google’s trademark by incorporating it name into ads for unauthorized, and what Google says are phony products.
According to the suit:
“Defendants deceive the public by misusing the famous Google brand and Google marks to sell to consumers work-at-home kits purporting to train and enable consumers to earn money using Google services and even made up names of publications and attributed stories to them about their systems.
“These fictional stories feature people who say they earn money through Google-related work-at-home businesses and are formatted to look as if they originate with a real newspaper or news agency. In actuality, these sites are not authentic. Virtually none of the articles are published by actual news outlets.”
The ads allegedly promise users that they can earn money by purchasing training kits for phony programs like “Google AdWork,” “Google Cash,” and “Google ATM.”
Google further alleges that the companies involved in the scam incorporate Google into domain names, like googlemoneyprofits.com.
In addition to trademark infringement, Google alleged that Pacific WebWorks violated a federal cybersquatting law and various state and federal unfair competition laws.
Google is seeking an injunction ordering Pacific WebWorks to stop using the Google name in its campaigns as well as monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.
“”You may have seen offers using Google’s name or logo that sounded too good to be true, like “Use Google to Make 1000s of Dollars!” or “Easy Cash with Google: You Could be Making up to $978 a Day Working from Home!”.
“””Google hasn’t created or endorsed any of the sites like those described in our complaint.”
“As far as we can tell, thousands of people have been tricked into sending payment information and being charged hidden fees by questionable operations.”
“Even as we’re taking legal action to try to cut these sites off at the source, we’re still working constantly to remove scammy URLs from our index, and we’ll permanently disable AdWords accounts that provide a poor or harmful user experience, whether or not they use Google’s trademarks illegally.””
“”Names to be wary of: Google Adwork, Google ATM, Google Biz Kit, Google Cash, Earn Google Cash Kit, Google Fortune, Google Marketing Kit, Google Profits, The Home Business Kit for Google, Google StartUp Kit, and Google Works.””
Tim Davids says
So what about companies that manage adword campaigns? Those companies are technically teaching people how to make money using google.
John Daly says
I think this is fair action for a common business, these companies are misleading unsuspecting consumers by utilizing their trademarked name. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to see Google as a common business, if they want to run the Internet and all it’s money making outlets than what do they expect?
snicksnack says
I am wondering why it took Google so long to react on this. I have seen these ads since about 2 month all over the internet. What amazes me even more how many people actually fall for these “get rich quick, with no work involved” schemes.
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