Bing/Yahoo! Search Alliance Updates its Trademark Policy

The Search Alliance (a.k.a. Bing and Yahoo! PPC) have announced a change to their trademark policies to go into effect on March 3rd, 2011.  Much like the Google AdWords trademark policy has been for some time, the Search Alliance will no longer investigate the use of trademark terms in keywords.  They will still investigate the unauthorized use of trademarked terms in ad text when presented with a complaint by a trademark owner.  This change just means advertisers can now bid on trademarked terms, as they can in AdWords, they just can’t use those terms in their ad text.

The Search Alliance states that by aligning their “trademark policy with the current industry standard, we hope to help simplify your marketing efforts across the various online advertising programs.”