American Airlines Sues Google Over AdWords

Upset that advertisements for its competitors are appearing in searches for its trademarks, American Airlines parent AMR has sued Google seeking unspecified damages.

AMR says that ads for competitors' services appear when searching for its trademarked names, such as its “Aadvantage” frequent flyer program. The company says the ads appear alongside ads placed by the company itself in the ‘Sponsored Links’ section.

Such a practice could confuse American Airlines’ customers, AMR says, and could affect the company’s business. Google has been sued before under similar circumstances, but it is somewhat unusual for a company of this size to be a litigant. AMR tried to negotiate with Google to have the competitors' ads removed, however those talks were unsuccessful.

The only other company of AMR’s size to take on Google over its ad sales practices was Geico, which complained to a federal judge in Virginia that the search giant was letting competing insurance companies advertise under the search term “Geico.” The judge ruled in favor of Google in that matter.

Geico was still able to collect for damages as a result of competitors' ads with the company’s name in them, which it did so in 2005. In most other cases in the US, Google has come out on the winning end, however in France courts, have sided with the plaintiff companies.

Google had no public comment on the matter as of press time.

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