The company offers trademark, domain name and competitive services to clients, who include Estee Lauder and Playboy. Using the site's free bannerStake banner search engine, a user can search the ads that appear on 12 search engines. A random sampling showed interesting results. It's a form of cyberterrorism. They siphon traffic away from your site.
Trademarks exist to protect consumers.
Consumers trust a brand name and companies want to keep that trust. If somebody is advertising products they're not licensed to sell, that is a problem. The search engine controversey is similiar to earlier days when domain names were bought by individuals and then sold to companies for enormous amounts. The trademark holder should be able to buy back the name. Copyright 2001 INT Media Group, Incorporated All Rights Reserved.