Mortal Wombat

Background:

1. Google has a policy that trademark owners can register their legit trademarks with Google if they don’t want those trademarks to be used in the text of Google ads placed by others. (Within USA/Canada, this policy covers ad text only, not keywords.)

2. Someone recently tried to place a Google AdWords ad that criticized MoveOn for its 9/10 controversial nytimes ad. “MoveOn” and “MoveOn.org” are trademarks. MoveOn had previously followed Google’s aforementioned policy to request that others not be able to use those trademarks in the text of Google ads. As a result, Google rejected the ad.
3. IANAL, but as far as I can tell there is no legal reason why Google has to have the type of policy they do. There is a nominative use exception to TM law that would seem to apply to the attempted use of the term “MoveOn” in this case. In other words, people / companies / organizations are allowed to use others’ trademarks descriptively, including for the sake of criticism / comparison that is not misleading. (The nominative use link has specifics on the New Kids precedent.)

So, assuming that Google follows its policy consistently, the legitimate criticism isn’t that they are censoring a conservative political ad. The criticism is that Google’s trademark policy gives companies and organizations another way to limit criticism. Considering Google’s leading position in online advertising, their advertising policies have political consequences. So while I personally much prefer MoveOn’s politics to those of the guy who tried to place this ad, this is a much bigger issue. The same policy would allow Nike, for example, to prevent others from directly criticizing Nike in the text of their ads. Maybe this is an acceptable policy, but it should be recognized that it’s different from the way advertising has worked in other mediums.