Compressed Data: Several Lawsuits Challenge Internet Ads

February 15, 1999

COMPRESSED DATA

Several Lawsuits Challenge Internet Ads

recent round of lawsuits, including one from Playboy Enterprises, threatens to challenge some fundamental assumptions of Internet advertising.
Playboy, no stranger to the courts when it comes to protecting its famous brand, is suing Netscape Communications and Excite in an effort to keep banner ads for pornographic, non-Playboy sites from appearing when Web surfers use either Netscape or Excite to look for material with the key words "playboy" or "playmate." Searching for Playboy magazine on Excite, for example, summons a come-hither ad from Tease.com.

Related Article
Lawsuits Challenge Search Engines' Practice of 'Selling' Trademarks
(February 12, 1999)

Just a few weeks before, Estee Lauder filed a similar lawsuit against Excite, accusing the search service of trademark infringement, "bait and switch" false advertising and unfair competition.
A search for Estee Lauder on Excite, or on Excite's associated search provider, Web Crawler, brings up an ad for the Fragrance Counter -- a retailer that Estee Lauder says is not an authorized seller of Estee Lauder products. The Fragrance Counter is also named in the Estee Lauder suit.
Selling advertisers access to so-called key words, so that their banner ads appear near certain search results based on the key words -- such as a competitor's brand name -- is widespread in the Internet business.
Typing in "Amazon" on the Lycos search engine, for instance, may elicit an ad for the bookseller Amazon.com's chief rival, Barnes & Noble. Searching for a pair of Levi's jeans with Netscape may bring up an ad for the Gap.
(To find out just how widely their names are being used in keyword purchases, companies can use a free service called Bannerstake to display ads associated with their names.)
Currently, ad sales based on key words account for roughly a quarter of the advertising revenue generated by portal and search sites like Excite -- a category of Web sites that together generated more than $450 million from advertising, according to Jupiter Communications.
If Playboy and Estee Lauder prevail in court, the rules of Internet advertising would need to be substantially rewritten. "At the end of the day, the search engines are selling advertising against a trademarked name and making a profit on it," said Drew Ianni, a Jupiter analyst. "Any change would have an impact on the bottom line." -- LAURIE J. FLYNN

Can You Play 'Feelings' on the Ocarina?

he new Nintendo video game, "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time," is on pace to become one of the best-selling video games ever. And its popularity seems to have spawned another craze -- demand for real ocarinas, those flute-like musical instruments that look like sweet potatoes with finger holes.

www.scn.org/~bg599

In the video game, its elfin hero, Link, travels through time and the magical world of Hyrule, doing battle with his nemesis, Ganondorf, to save Princess Zelda. Playing his ocarina transports Link through time and space.
Many Nintendo fans are transporting themselves on the Web in search of their own ocarinas. Anita Feng, an artisan in Issaquah, Wash., who has been making traditional-style ceramic ocarinas for 25 years, has seen her business more than double to about 60 handmade instruments a month, since the Nintendo game was released in November.
"Right now, about three-fourths of my business is from people who played the game," said Ms. Feng, who operates Anita's Ocarinas site. She said she received five to 10 orders daily, primarily for the 10-hole ocarinas, like the one played by Luke.
Ms. Feng said she might have to hire help to handle the new orders.
The ocarina boomlet brings rare cachet to an instrument believed to have been invented in the 1860s by an Italian, Guiseppe Donati, who gave them a name meaning "little goose." But then, rarely has there been a video game as popular as the latest version of Zelda, who has been a Nintendo character since 1987.
During the last six weeks of 1998, the game sold about 2.5 million units, generating $150 million in revenue. Nintendo is projecting eventual sales of six million copies or more of Ocarina in Time.
While Ms. Feng has seen her business boom, not all ocarina makers have been as lucky. Charlie Hind, for instance, says he has seen only a limited increase in ocarina sales at Hind Musical Instruments.
Zelda fans may revel in virtual adventures on screen, but when it comes to ocarinas they seem to demand authenticity. Some have scoffed at buying Hind's ocarinas, which instead of being ceramic are made of wood. -- SHARON R. KING

Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.

Netscape Communications
Excite
Estee Lauder
Fragrance Counter
Web Crawler
Bannerstake
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Anita's Ocarinas site
Hind Musical Instruments

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