The left-leaning political advocacy group, MoveOn.org, is backing down in a flap over the use of its name in online advertisements, permitting an influential Republican senator to criticize the organization in a reelection ad on Google's search engine. "We don't want to support a policy that denies people freedom of expression," says Jennifer Lindenauer, MoveOn.org's communications director.
"Actually, we do want to suppress freedom of expression, but only if we can get away with it."
| Yup. They got caught. Heh. |
Both MoveOn.org and Google late last week faced a barrage of criticism after an internet strategist for Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine complained that Google had blocked several re-election ads from the search engine's advertising network because the ads contained the trademarked term "MoveOn.org" in the text.
"Stop Moveon.org. More MoveOn money in Maine than anywhere else. Learn how to help," read one of the banned ads, which linked to Collins' reelection campaign site.
Under Google's trademark policy, owners can request that third parties' not be allowed to use their trademarked term in the text of ads -- a policy that far exceeds the requirements of trademark law. Lindenauer says that MoveOn.org withdrew from that policy on Friday after it heard about the brewing controversy over Google's termination of Collins' text ads using the group's name. |