AskJolene vs BMW
Company
BMW AG orders AskJolene.com to remove search results
October 12, 2004, Uitgeest, the Netherlands
The German car manufacturer BMW AG has ordered adult search engine AskJolene.com to immediately remove a number of results from its index and to blacklist the providers of the documents.
AskJolene.com collects free erotic content ("galleries") from the web, and offers its users a dedicated full text search engine to locate galleries to their liking. The results are presented as summaries that link to their original gallery. The galleries are not hosted by AskJolene.com.
BMW AG claims that AskJolene.com infringes on its trademark rights. AskJolene's results for the search query 'bmw' contain galleries in which the word 'bmw' occurs. They also contain pornographic pictures depicting amongst other things a BMW car.
A quote from the BMW AG cease and desist order:
"Cease and desist from, with immediate effect, but ultimately not later
than two days after the date of this letter, any more infringements of my
clients rights, on the Website and/or any other website(s) it exploits and/or
operates, and in particular:
AskJolene.com will not yield to the claim. "As far as we know, we haven't done anything wrong. Our search engine is a navigational aid. We provide a way for our users to locate galleries as quickly and conveniently as possible. If we give in to BMW's claim, other search engines will have a problem as well." according to Chief Marketing Mike Schwalbach.
About AskJolene.com
AskJolene.com is a fully featured adult search engine that delivers over two million of search results to users worldwide every day. It has won international acclaim for its accuracy and its ability to deliver a targeted audience to the websites of content providers.
For more information: info@askjolene.com.
