Interesting story in the Wall St. Journal about language training company Rosetta Stone suing a competitor who has bought Google Ad words that encourage users to visit sites such as “Don’t Buy Rosetta Software,” and “Rosetta Spanish a Scam?”

From the article:

some of Google’s biggest advertisers are growing angry over “piggybacking,” a practice in which smaller advertisers use the trademarked words of big brands in the text of search ads to divert traffic from the sites of bigger advertisers to their own sites.

Now Rosetta Stone — the company that runs print ads about a small-town boy who must learn Italian in time to impress a model — is taking its gripe to court. But rather than going after Google, Rosetta Stone is suing Rocket Languages (and others), the company that it claims is “piggybacking” its Internet advertising on Rosetta Stone’s name.

In a complaint filed in California federal court, Rosetta Stone alleges that members of an advertising program affiliated with Rocket Languages purchase and use, without authorization, the Rosetta Stone trademark, or confusingly similar variations. Rosetta Stone also alleges that affiliates of Rocket Languages use their Web sites to post “comparison reviews” of Rosetta Stone products and competing foreign language software products, without disclosing that the sources of the reviews are paid by Rocket Languages.

Being clever with Google adwords is one thing, but piggybacking in this manner (including fake reviews and calling your competitor’s product a scam) is beyond the ethical line. Rosetta Stone pays a lot for traditional advertising (full page ads in major magazines), kiosks in airports etc. Rocket Languages, in effect, gets auxilliary benefit from these expenditures because it creates demand for the whole market. Not happy with that, they are launching sneaky attacks.

Wikinomics blog readers, what are you thoughts? Is all fair in (Adwords) love and war?

By the way, the  Wikipedia entry for the actual Rosetta Stone is quite well written.