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Comment by nuclearnice1 | Hacker News Reader

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nuclearnice1

> searching for Ozonetel on Google. There will be six competitor ads and then our website will show up :)

Tried it. One ad. From ozontel.com

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But we all tried it. So that was either a mistake or pretty good advertisement from the op.

Hah, I saw Ozonetel Alternative - Dialpad® Official Site...

So Dialpad.

Pretty sneaky Dialpad lol

It's not sneaky to compete in a marketplace.

I'd argue it is sneaky to put the competitor's name first, as most people will click quickly to move on to the website.

Disagree in this specific situation (generally yes) - "XYZ alternative" is about as clear language as you can get. Nothing sneaky about it.

People click through search results really fast. "XYZ alternative" would be much more acceptable if it came after the real name, but putting "XYZ" as the very first word is guaranteed to cause confusion.

The result can be split two ways. Either the advertiser wasted money on a click because the consumer will seek out the true XYZ. Or the consumer will be satisfied with what they've clicked and choose to buy it.

Hopefully the metrics show that the latter is mostly happening.

It's only fraud if the advertiser counterfeits XYZ's brand on their website.

I'm worried about trademark law, not fraud per se, and consumer confusion is the gold standard.

The ad can violate trademarks even if the site behind the ad is squeaky-clean.

Trademark law does not stop you saying "my product is better than X". It only stops you saying "my product is X".

Generally, yes. But if a large fraction of people are getting confused in a specific context, then you can say "don't word it that way", even if the wording is true when you consider it in a vacuum.

If putting the other brand name first causes consumer confusion in certain places, that's a problem, even if they're not lying or even doing it on purpose.

If ozonetel is trademarked it's generally against Google Ads TOS for competitors to use the term in ad copy. File a complaint.

We recently launched in the US. Nice that Dialpad has noticed us. All the best to them :)

Ok you guys made me curious, so I tried to. I got Ozonetel at the top, zero ads! I win! :)

I saw Dialpad

Strangely enough my ad blocker had been disabled and I didn't get any ads for Ozonetel. Perhaps it's because I'm searching from Philippines.

You still see ads on Google?

All results related to Ozonetel and zero ads

https://imgur.com/a/q70nShf

One ad from dialpad for my try.

It appeared 2 ads for me, the first one very big with 3 clickable links

I've got two ads: salesforce and weeloy.

ozontel.com doesn't exist. Is that a typo or did a competitor really buy ads to a nonexistent domain?

ozonetel.com

good eye. That’s a typo on my part

Same

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