Selling trademarks

I hadn't thought about it before, but I was recently looking for accounting software and did a Google search for Peachtree Accounting and saw adds for netsuite.

It turns out, Google allows auctioning of trademarked keywords to the trademark owner's competitors in the United States.

Sure, I know enough to know that netsuite is not Peachtree, but considering how Google auctions keywords, this is driving up the cost for Peachtree to advertise to customers looking specifically for their software.

I'll have to come out against Google on this one, I don't think auctioning trademarked keywords to competitors is fair practice. Especially since Google makes a hefty profit when competitors fight it out for the advertising space...

Thanks to Michael Orey for the article - http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2009/tc20090414_278741.htm