illegal meta tags

[Gregsta]

Hi there,
One of our competitors have our product and company name in their meta tags. This is illegal isnt it? And who do you report this to?

Thanks

Greg

[Bernard]

If your company has trademarked the product name or company name, I would get a trademark lawyer to send them a polite cease and desist letter.

[Webmaster T]

I believe if memory serves me correct that there are a few cases where meta tags could contain trademarked info for instance if your product or service is being reviewed, or compared to others. Danny Sullivans site www.searchenginewatch.com is about the best place to check legal precedents and history for this sort of stuff. If its a case of just putting them in to be found for your products then likely they are breaking the trademark.

[Gregsta]

Our product is called assyst and they have it in their tags, they also have peregrine and touchpaper in their tags, both of these are rival companies as well.

Earlier this year we sent them a letter from or company lawyers to cease this activity which they did for a while but now they have started again.

The URL by the way of the offending company is www.marval.co.uk

Greg

[Advisor]

If they have a legitimate reason to mention your name on their site, they can put it in their meta tags. If they don't, then they don't.

Time for you to write another letter to them.

Jill

[chrisjaeger]

Did your letter indicate search engines are likely to frown on this type of activity as it is an attempt to manipulte search results... and could be considered cheating.

You'd hate to see them get blacklisted for cheating, hey? <grin>.


Originally posted by Gregsta
Our product is called assyst and they have it in their tags, they also have peregrine and touchpaper in their tags, both of these are rival companies as well.

Earlier this year we sent them a letter from or company lawyers to cease this activity which they did for a while but now they have started again.

The URL by the way of the offending company is www.marval.co.uk

Greg

[AskMeNoQuestions]

Why not report them to google instead?

[sbuBear]

It's just bad form to use a competitors name in a title tag or meta-tag. Sure you may use their name in a legitimate reference in the copy. However putting it in the title etc is just an attempt to steal traffic.

You may not have a claim even if you have trademarks. If the company is UK based and you have not registered your trademarks internationally, I think they can do as they please.

Additional costs and paperwork for registering trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks for additional countries.

The rules change from country to country.

[Advisor]

You may not have a claim even if you have trademarks. If the company is UK based and you have not registered your trademarks internationally, I think they can do as they please. Of course they cannot do as they please!

Everyone has a trademark on their material, whether they register it or not.

And no one can steal it, regardless of what country they live in. That's the lame excuse the thieves use, and it's wrong.

Your company name is your trademark, and your copy is copyrighted just by the fact that you wrote it. NOBODY has a right to steal other people's intellectual property.

Jill

[sbuBear]

Jill, I have real respect for you, but you are out of your area of expertise. Patent Law and trademarks is super complicated. That is why large corporations employ them to register and protect product names and company names. TM and R marks are not granted automatically.

Yes, you can copyright something in the fashion you are describing, but again it gets fuzzy outside the USA. Sorry, that is the real world.

However, I completely agree with you it should not be this way.

I am not a patent lawyer but as a communications manager for a billion dollar company with hundreds of TM or Rs I had to constantly work with our patent lawyers.

Have you not heard of Aspirin. The famous trade name that is no longer a trade name. And how about Dupont who is vicously protecting their Teflon trade name. Copyright, Trademark, Registered Trademark, and service marks are all different animals.

[Advisor]

I don't deny that I am out of my area of expertise! Most definitely you'd want to contact an attorney on the actual laws.

But I do know that nobody can just steal someone's content or their trademarked names, regardless of the country they live in. I imagine an attorney would say the same thing. Perhaps someone who is an attorney could chime in so we would know for sure!

Jill

[Webmaster T]

Originally posted by sbuBear
It's just bad form to use a competitors name in a title tag or meta-tag. Sure you may use their name in a legitimate reference in the copy. However putting it in the title etc is just an attempt to steal traffic.No way! You sound like someone who has had this done to them but in no way is legitimate use stealing traffic simply because if it is a legitimate use it is even worse form to not put it in the title because the title is supposed to describe what the page is about. It is supposed to assist users to find what they are looking for.

You made good points about registered Trademarks outside the US but IMO, you're dead wrong about the legitimate use of trademarks on competing sites being bad form. I wouldn't personally do it but I wouldn't think it bad form to do so if it were legitimate and meant to aid the user in product evaluation. If it were done under that guise but it really is just an attempt to get another sites traffic then ethically you are wrong because you are doing it just for SE which is always an indication what you are doing is in "bad form"!

[sbuBear]

I think we agree on 99 plus percent of this. I personally just think you can describe the page without using your competitors name in the title tag and meta-description.

<TITLE>Non-Stick Coatings Comparisons and Cross Reference</TITLE>

I am all for putting their trade name on the page when your doing a product comparison page comparing features etc. That is absolutely a legitimate use.

But you should also be courteous and * their product name / company name with a footnote indicating their ownership.

*Teflon is a registered trademark of DuPont

[Webmaster T]

Yeup, you are right we mostly agree my point is that if I'm looking to compare products I will be searching using a company or product name to filter the results. If it isn't in the title it likely isn't going to show on the first page which on google is where I usually change my tact if I don't find it there. I have found most users do not go beyond that first SERP.