"J'ai de la chance"

Europeans may be reaping what they sow, as their stronger sense of copyright and trademark protections in the context of keyword advertising is forcing Continental search firms to publish lists of verboten words - many of which are fairly plain. Unbeatable, staples, boots, loot, next and many other words that were once in the English language are now apparently off limits from major European search media player Kelkoo.

Particularly in France, companies have been playing Harry with Google's business model, successfully suing the search giant for employing terms that are also part of their brand trademarks.

One French decision in particular, from this past December, mucked about with Google's back-end systems, suggesting that its own keyword suggestion utility may be the device that puts trademark liability at its doorstep.