Google - the evil empire. Google’s - ‘Don’t be evil’ motto is BS according to Steve Jobs. He’s not wrong. Google are not only becoming ‘the evil empire’ abusing of their monopolistic dominant position (hey, everything they hated about Microsoft, Google are now being accused of, by someone or other), but they are hypocrites as well. You might have read recently that Google won a landmark court case in Europe meaning that now anyone can use their rival's trademarks in Google Adwords. Google’s side of the argument:  Google Policy Blog It means that you, as owner of your trademark, now have to bid against rivals who pay Google to use your trademark in their ads.  Isn’t a trademark meant to be a my exclsuive ‘mark of my trade’, under my control?  Isn’t a point of a trademark meant to be that I control and own its exclusive use? I thought that’s what it was. So it means, for example, when I look up Interflora to purchase some flowers, that M&S can put their ad on the page, and could even put it above the Interflora ad. So what you might say? Well the downside is that now Interflora have to pay a lot, lot more to use their own trademark, because competitors are bidding against them with their own trademark.  Who benefits from this change of law?  Well Google of course - their ad income is now very considerably higher on the use of previously propriety trademarks. But it gets worse.   Irrespective of the rights or wrong of this particular law, it means I can use other people’s trademarks in my Adword. Err...except in one case. I own a small company that has a product that enhances Google's Gmail and Google Docs software.  It fixes a limitation that these applications have, of not being able to paste pictures into your email, like you can with desktop software.  The product, PicturePaste.com, is not a competitor of Gmail or Google Docs even - it actually makes them better and easier to use. So when I recently tried to purchase some adwords, for example as simple as 'Paste pictures into Gmail'.  I get all my ads rejected.  Why?  Because I'm using Google trademarks in my adwords! So one law for everyone else.  Another for Google themselves. And that, my good friends, is Google being evil. A web log, a test of my web design software, stories about the absurd, the dumb & interesting stuff. Labels All Android Evil Google Google Chrome Gmail Apple / iPhone / iPad Stephen Fry Optical Illusions Bad Press Science & Engineering Electric Cars Bankers Web Fonts