Advertising on keywords is a strong revenue driver for portal sites, said Evan Neufeld, an analyst at Jupiter Communications Inc., in New York. But a banner ad attached to a keyword can cost up to 50 percent more than that. Bannerstake enables a company to conduct banner ad searches on the major portal sites. None of the companies named in the suit would comment beyond a written statement. But the real issue is less defined.
Legal scholars doubt it.
Besides hauling other companies into court, there are more-proactive things a company can do to protect its brand. Rosenoer recommends that a company pay attention to domain name listings. Other vendors are trying to help merchants eliminate confusion between a brand and a Web address. Centraal Corp., of Palo Alto, Calif., allows a company to bypass the domain name issue altogether by licensing RealName links to a Web site. Inc. All rights reserved.