Interflora is taking legal action against Marks & Spencer (M&S) over allegations that the supermarket chain has bought its brand name as a keyword search on Google AdWords.
The florist is accusing M&S of bidding on the word “Interflora” and sponsoring mis-spelt occurrences of the brand name on AdWords to lure customers to its own shop, Flowers Direct.
The trademark change was launched on the 5th of May which allows non trademark owners to bid on trademarked terms. This sparked outrage with many top end businesses due to the costs involved with competitor bidding.
Google stated that this action was to improve the service for users. All Google seem to have done so far is cause legal rows between top branded companies.
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