Re:Brave Search beta
by ocdtrekkie on Wednesday June 23, 2021 @12:22AM
(#27600763)
Bear in mind, Best Buy should pay zero pennies for each of the millions of people trying to reach their website. It's absolutely inexcusable for a search company, which also owns an ad company, and also happens to run the web browser everyone's using, to create a system that basically taxes all attempts to visit a business's website specifically.
Honestly, what Google and Microsoft and such are doing in this case is trademark theft. They are selling the search result for a trademarked name they don't own, and when the actual trademark owner wants to be found by their own name... they have to pay for it.
I don't know who is going to file the case, but sooner or later, someone should, because it's a slam dunk.
One thing to note is that the cost of the ad is based on the landing page relevance (and even more so for branded terms), and so in your example Best Buy would be able to buy the ad for the "Best Buy" keyword for pennies (a rounding error on their SEM campaign, I'm sure), while Circuit City would have to pay a whole bunch for the "Best Buy" keyword.
Given that, I don't mind it so much. It's a good way for a competitor to get their name out there, but it's not really a sustainable practice long term for them. There's built-in pressure favoring the incumbent on their own terms.