[elliotz]

I wonder why Mozilla doesn't go after these sites for trademark infringement. Mozilla made Debian change the name of their Firefox package to Iceweasel because they made modifications; surely bundling in adware also violates Mozilla's trademark policy?

[RyanZAG]

It does. Google goes after them as well. However, there is generally a large delay before they manage to take them down and verification is always done post-display and not pre-display. You can report bad adverts at https://support.google.com/adwords/contact/feedback?hl=en and Google will eventually get to them, usually after their account balances have run down a bit. There's definitely no sign of any urgency on that front.

[gcp]

It turns out Debian is much more responsive to Mozilla requests than adware providers, and going through court takes a long time.

[anon1385]

Why not complain to Google though? They have policies about the use of trademarks in ad text.

https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en

[gcp]

I've done so dozens of times, without result. Maybe those sites walk the thin line of that policy, or maybe Google just doesn't give a fk.

[sliverstorm]

Iceweasel actually modified Firefox, this sounds more like bundling Firefox with other stuff in the same installer package. Vaguely reminiscent of distributing a Linux ISO that installs Firefox, along with other stuff...

[elliotz]

Except that the Linux ISO is not called "Firefox." It would be OK for the Linux distribution to use the Firefox trademark descriptively to say that it includes Firefox, but that's not what these adware vendors are doing. They're calling their "Firefox bundled with some adware" Firefox.

[cma]

Exactly--if you top off the air gap in a coke bottle with piss you can't go around selling it as Coca Cola.