Shannon wrote:
Actually, companies pay a lot of money for shelf space. Most of the generics want to be right next to what they are knocking off. Even some retail supermarkets and such will purposely put their generic brand right next to a trademarked brand. I think as a real world analogy goes, its closer than the alternative. /blockquote>
Yes, people pay for shelf space. It is not directed toward "I want to be next to the coke" so much as it is "I want to be in the soda section at eye level." However, even if it were "I want to be next to the coke" this is not precisely the same thing as "I want to be listed under the word "coke" in your bibliography." Most supermarkets do not have a sign that says "coke" and most toy stores do not have a sign that says "transformers" even in the south where people have a habit for substituting trademarks for general catagories of products.
The shelf analogy is better because neither the google searches or the shelves actually hijack the "recognition" of the brand, however money is spent based on trademarked brand names to capitalize on the popularity of that specific brand.
Huh? If you saw an advertisement for Kleenex and its the only facial tissue you've ever heard of and then you type it into google because you don't quite remember the URL and you get an advertisement for Reliable instead (I'm in Germany so thats what showed up in my search), CLEARLY Reliable has benefited from the name recognition that Kleenex has built. I would never have known about Reliable had I never heard of Keelex, as I would never have typed Kleenex into Google and so I would never had seen that ad.
The bottom line is that when people see ads they like they type things into Google. If they see an ad for X product, they type X product's name into Google, and in return they get a bunch of competitor's products, its likely they'll buy the competitor's product instead. When this is happenstance, its life. When those competitors have purposfully purchased those ads in order to benefit from the advertising expenditures incured by X product, its theft. I don't see whats so hard to understand about this.
