Google have announced plans to open up bidding on trademarked keywords to AdWords advertisers worldwide. Beginning June 4th, companies will be able to use trademarked keywords of their competitors to trigger their search advertisements.

Despite other search engines like Yahoo! and MSN banning the practice, Google will allow advertisers in over 200 countries to bid on rival trademark keywords, as long as they don’t appear in the search ad itself. This means that Pepsi for instance, could bid on the keyword ‘coca cola’ and have their ad shown for searches related to that query.

After defending numerous legal challenges in the past, the move signals Google’s confidence that the practice is not infringing on trademark law in most places around the globe. Advertisers can grab a full list of the countries where Google will not investigate trademark claims here.

The bottom line for Google is that the change will help to bring them in more revenue. It simply increases the number of search terms that competitors can bid on which equals more advertising revenue for Google.

What are your thoughts? Would you mind competitors bidding on your trademarked keywords?

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