A law professor at Santa Clara University in California is accusing Google of an “impermissible conflict of interest” in regards to its practice of bidding in Adwords auctions in order to place ads for their own products and services. These are known as house ads. Eric Goldman says the practice distorts ad value and just more »

Google has announced that starting September 14th, it will allow European markets to bid on brand names as keywords, something it already allows North America, Ireland, and the UK to do. This will allow advertisers to have their ads show up when users search for names such as Nike, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Apple, and other more »

From Rosetta Stones point of view, Google is profiting from their trademarks. By selling keywords based on Rosetta Stone trademarks, Google is offering others the chance to sell their solution and as Rosetta Stone believes, it’s illegal. A US District court has dismissed Rosetta Stone’s trademark infringement lawsuit. “We are deeply disappointed that Rosetta Stone more »

Google has adjusted their policies in order to allow users of AdWords to included trademarked names into their ads. Users can start creating the ads as early as today, but the new ads will not go live until June 11. This inclusion is an attempt at creating a better user experience as well as allowing more »

Never the one to allow a business model pass them by, Google recently announced a partnership with CTT to provide advanced online advertising courses for professionals in Latin America, beginning in March 2009.

The courses, offered through the Google Business Education Center (GOOBEC), are designed to expand the offerings that have been available from GOOBEC since April, 2008. With the partnership, the same classes will be offered in both CTT’s online portfolio and education centers with an eye towards developing talent specialized in online advertising.

In a move that completely has the tech industry shaken up, Microsoft has put out a statement saying they have Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share – which of course equates to $44.6 billion dollars. Yes, that this number -> $44,600,000,000… wow.

The bid for tech giant Yahoo is a mix of cash and stock, and would clearly be a giant blow to search leader Google. The release states that online advertising is a big plus to the acquisition, in a niche where the two companies have struggled to compete with Google’s AdSense / Adwords.

Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer sent the following letter to the Yahoo! Board of Directors yesterday. More analysis to come on Gadgetell.