Ad restrictions?

Just wondering if anyone knows the answer to this.... I was once in a mall outside a nightclub for a bit that was so laggy and over priced I left it. At the time I had classified ads going and their name was in the keywords. Well I had forgot that the name was even in there and got a IM today getting yelled at telling me I have no right and such because the name is still in the keyword. Now mind you, its not in the ad itself ONLY a keyword among a ton of other keywords.

Is this wrong? Is there any restrictions on this? I really dont mind removing it and really forgot it was there in the first place I just don't like the way they were being rude right from the start.

Just wondering... Thanks!

Strikes me that they were assuming you exploiting their name rather than simply forgetting you had it there in the first place... people who assume the worst first are often proved wrong. I can't see that you did anything wrong and certainly nothing to be abused about. If I were you I'd just politely remind them that once you were a tennant there and had just forgot to remove hteir name when you chose to move. If they continue to be abusive just console yourself with the knowledge that you've got away from such a negative person and get on with your life.

Personally I can't see why they'd have an issue having their name associated with such an amazing builder.

fix your keywords now

dont worry about them going loopy though.

Yeah I did, I took it out of my ads. I have no use for them in there it jsut all struck a question with me though on if you could or could not use whatever keywords you like.

Thanks!

Why did you put their name in your keywords anyway? Isn't that sort of like McDonalds placing Burger King's name in their ad copy, to get search results from both companies names? I can see, if you RAN the mall, taking out an ad for the whole mall, listing all the merchants in that mall. But if you were just one of the other tenants, I wouldn't list the neighboring merchants or businesses in my keywords.

I wouldn't see anything wrong with saying in your ad copy something like "From the telehub, we are just to the left of the 3-story tall BigBucks Casino." But I wouldn't list them as a specific keyword.

But the questions is not why.... The question is... Can you?

I'm confused....

Can you? Yes, you can do anything you want. The question is, should you. Ethically.

To be honest I don't see what the big deal is if its a keyword. I did take it out though. I could careless either way over a keyword. It just made me wonder if it was allowed or not.

You aren't going to get into trouble over it unless the name has a copyright or something I suppose, but I don't see why anyone would use someone else's store name, club name, or mall name as a keyword for their own business. If I were the owner of the club/mall in question, I would be upset too.

so if i name my store 'Rave gear DJ booths and Dj Tables' no one else can use those key words ?


lolz

What? No, it's nothing like that. A correct analogy here would be like a McDonald's advertising that it is located in Acme Plaza. Or a restaurant advertising that it is located in such-and-such hotel:
http://www.mccormickandschmicks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.display&pageid=96&id=72

It wasn't advertising that voodoo owns the mall, just that his store was in the mall. Unless I'm misreading the OP, I don't see any reference to competing businesses, only to the mall.

But if McDonald's isn't in the Acme Plaza, or the restaurant isn't in the hotel, then it's false advertising.

When it comes to keywords for searching, things get much fuzzier. If Acme and Ajax are competitors, and Acme buys a Google word ad for searches on Ajax, is that ok? I think that Google will allow it, and I'm inclined to think it's ok. But then suppose Acme rigs their home page so that it comes up first for someone searching Google for Ajax. Is that ok? Definitely not, and Google goes to a lot of trouble to make that difficult. The reason it's not is that the person reading the results of the search can tell the difference between the ads that show up and the ostensibly impartial results that show up.

So translate that to SL. Is it ok to put your competitor's name into your keywords, so that someone searching for your competitor will find you? I'm not sure I know the answer to that. As a consumer, I might be annoyed at getting results I don't want - or I might be pleased to learn about alternatives.

But if what you're doing is including the name of a mall at which you no longer have a presence, then yes, it's wrong, but it's not evil. It's wrong because there's no legitimate reason for it - people searching for the mall are looking for the mall, not you. It seems unlikely that it provides you any value, it just annoys customers and others, and could mislead people about your location (and any prestige or goodwill associated with that location). So if someone catches this, they really shouldn't be angry at you - it's easy to miss and not a big deal - but you should remove it.

I think an RL business would be allowed to put something along the lines of "we're the shop that used to be in the Side Arcade" on their posters..

This seems more of a question of "do I have to take out what would otherwise be entirely reasonable statements from my adverts, just because SL's keyword search doesn't understand semantics, even though in an RL ad they would be fine".

lol if we ban false advertizing in SL

it will make this casino ad ban look like nothing.


90% of ads will disapear.





On second thought that might be nice.

Im tired of the highest ranking classified and places spots in my business being held by camp fest clubs who just happen to have one of my competators renting a booth somewhere no one would ever find becuase they couldnt survive the lag.

If someone posted it just like that, it would be wrong of them and kinda like false advertising if your store was not there.

It wouldn't really be false advertising as the name chosen is made of a mix of generic terms.
If they advertise rave gear, DJ booths and DJ tables, and they sell those items, then no foul.

If you have a none generic, distinct name being used in someone elses advertising though, that's a whole different matter.

To the OP, you made a mistake, corrected it, and unless you were getting higher in the search results than them under a search for their name, it sounds like someone being angry for the hell of it. Best to just forget it and move on.