Google May Have To Reveal Your Data

July 9, 2007

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A competitor's advertising data held by Google may be just a legal complaint and a subpoena away from being available to anyone who wants it. The scuffle between Rhino Sports and Sport Court over the use of advertising to promote recreational flooring products could spill out over advertisers everywhere.

Certain AdWords advertisers have received letters from Google, alerting them of the subpoena issued by Sport Court. Law professor The letter advised recipients that unless they move to quash or otherwise object to the subpoena, Google will have to hand over the requested information by July 19th.

DidIt.com's Kevin Lee said in a In May 2007, Goldman discussed the Rhino Sports has purchased keywords like 'court' and 'basketball court', and their ad copy did not contain the term 'sport court'. That would have violated both the existing injunction against Rhino Sports (the case has been around since 2002) and Google's terms of service for AdWords.