In a sudden reversal of fairly long-standing policy, and after litigation with American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, Google has finally said, “it’s not our problem.” — at least in the U.S. In the past, Google has disallowed AdWords advertisers from bidding on competitors trade names, such as Playboy. And Google is currently in litigation with American Blind about whether other competitors can bid on the keyword “american blind” and other words that are included in or trademarked themselves.

Google’s policy in their FAQ states, “As a provider of space for advertisements, we cannot arbitrate trademark disputes between advertisers and trademark owners. As stated in our Terms and Conditions, advertisers are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. We encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with our advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites.”

On the other hand, their updated policy says, “As a courtesy, we are willing to perform a limited investigation of reasonable complaints. When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using the trademarked term as a keyword trigger.”

But their actual complaint policy states, “When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the advertisements at issue are using the trademarked term in ad text.” (emphasis in original)

So you can still use another company’s trademark in the ad itself — until the actual trademark owner complains about each particular ad by each inidividuual advertiser. And it appears that you can now, within the rules, bid on any trademarked keyword that want (at least in the U.S. and Canada).

Ouside the U.S., it appears Google still blocks all trademarked words in both keyword lists and the ads themselves.