Hard to contact website owners who violate copyright

[jgsketch]

I just recently found about 15 different websites using our comany name in thier PPC campaigns. Most of these website are nothing more than spammy search results pages. Doing a whois provides little information since they are all private registrations.

I have several options here and want to make sure I do the right ones first.
1. Leave it all upto the lawyers. (Expensive)
2. Call the offending registra and see if they can help me. (Time consuming)
3. Contact Google to get thier accounts banned. (Best Solution IMHO)

I personally just want to go to Google and get thier accounts banned. This would then allow me to keep track and if they do it again, i can get their accounts banned again after they switch names. Thus frustrating the crap out of them until they give up. (Evil Plan)

What would you do?

[mkoenig]

I would try 3 then 2... then as a last result see about suing them.

If you want try posting a question on thelaw.com they have a forum, that lawyers answer questions for free. Its worth a try, however sometimes it takes them a few days to answer.

[Dan Grossman]

Nobody's violating your copyrights with their PPC campaigns. If you're going to go after people, at least have a legal basis for it. Do you have a registered trademark you're trying to enforce maybe?

[jgsketch]

They are using the name of our company in the PPC campaign. The name of the company is trademarked.

For example, if you do a search for trinity credit counseling, you'll notice some other companies using the full name of Trinity in their PPC. Is this not allowed?

[Dan Grossman]

Your thread title says they're violating copyrights. Trademarks are not copyrights. When you're threatening people you need to know what you're talking about. Whether it's allowed or not is irrelevant. It's whether their use of your trademark is causing your company enough recoverable damage to be worth suing.

Google won't help you, they won't get in the middle of your dispute.
http://www.google.com/adwords/learni...ext/19466.html

Neither will a registrar or host. They're not a party to any infringement suit, it's not their responsibility to take any action against someone advertising with your trademark. You have to deal with the advertisers yourself. First point is to make sure it's worth your time (is there a good reason to stop their ads?), and the second thing to do is see a lawyer and have him send a cease-and-desist order to each company.