[OP] Gawker Potential Adword Bid Violations [x-post reddit] It's in violation of advertiser affiliate partners to bid on terms, trademarks or keywords in search engines that use the brand's name or product.  One affiliate advertiser had requested all publishing partners to verify and confirm that they were not using the brand's name or trademarks in the search engines in order to pilfer hits/consumers/views away from the brand or their products and toward their website. Here's an example letter from a fairly large retailer warning publishers NOT to use their brand name in adword campaigns in search engines: http://imgur.com/YYX3u9n I haven't had time to properly search through and see which adwords major media websites like Gawker or Buzzfeed are currently running on Google (i.e., you'll know if they paid for adwords because  Google adheres to having a flair by the link like the image here: http://imgur.com/MSwE69W). I also haven't worked out a foolproof way of finding adword campaigns by specific publishers, but usually Google has an ID code for ads that run through their network, so if you search up something with "Gawker" and find a link with the “Ad” flair by it you can possibly get the adword code from the link and use it in conjunction with the word “Gawker” to find out what other adwords they have running on search engines.  Essentially it's a scavenger hunt to see if they're using any brand names or proprietary brand terms in their adword campaigns. If they are using something like Kenmore or Batman or Dell as part of their adwords campaign, you contact the parent companies to verify if Gawker et al are allowed to do so, since it's a common violation of most advertising affiliate programs. There's no guarantee that the companies will hand out fines, but it's something worth looking into.  This post was mirrored from http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3b69ys/op_gawker_potential_adword_bid_violations/ and may have been edited at the original location.