Google France
has lost a trade mark action brought by hotel chain Le Meridien
Hotels and Resorts. source Out-Law.com
"Google France has lost a trade mark action brought
by hotel chain Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts over the search
engine's AdWords keyword advertising service. According to
reports, Google is planning to appeal.
AdWords allows advertisers to sponsor particular search terms
so that, whenever that term is searched for, the advertiser's
link will appear next to the search results.
A French regional court last week ordered Google's French
subsidiary to stop triggering adverts when users enter searches
for Meridien, Le Meridien or combinations of these with the
words "resort" or "hotel" if the adverts
would infringe the registered trade marks of Le Meridien.
Google's profit surges
Feb 02 09:47 Dow Jones Newswires Google's fourth-quarter
net income surged as the company expanded and continued to
see advertising growth in and strong traffic.
The internet search giant said fourth-quarter net income rose
to $US204.1 million ($263 million), or US71¢ a share,
from $US27.3 million, or US10¢ a share, a year earlier.
Analysts polled by Thomson First Call, on average, expected
the company to earn US77¢ a share. However, First Call's
forecast isn't directly comparable to Google's bottom-line
figure.
Google's shares surged about 5 per cent to $US201.69 in after-hours
trading. Shares of Google, which went public in August in
a heavily anticipated offering, closed the regular session
at $US191.90
Google's fourth-quarter revenue more than doubled to $US1.03
billion from $US512.17 million a year earlier. Analysts expected
revenue of $US591 million, excluding traffic-acquisition costs
of $US378 million.
Earlier on Tuesday, Microsoft officially launched its own
search engine, raising concerns that the additional competition
could hurt Google's market share.
Google said it saw growth throughout the year both in its
domestic business and internationally, on Google-owned sites
and on the Google Network.
Revenue from Google-owned sites jumped to $US1.6 billion in
2004 from $US792 million a year earlier. The company attributed
the rapid growth to increased site visits and to its "accumulated
knowledge of how to more efficiently monetise that traffic".
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