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Google Wins European Trademark Victory 39

Posted by timothy from the kleenex-runs-scared dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "A European court has ruled in Google's favor, saying that allowing advertising customers to use the names of other companies as search keywords does not represent a trademark violation. The court also went on to say that Google's AdWords program is protected by a European law governing Internet hosting services. Google's main line of defense was claiming that companies that want to extend trademark law to keywords are really interested in 'controlling and restricting the amount of information that users may see in response to their searches.' The decision is the first in a series of decisions from the court about how trademark rights can be used to restrict information available to users. Google is currently battling several trademark keyword cases in the US, including a case against Rosetta Stone, Inc."

Comment Re:The next line states... (Score 1) 360

by bonniot (#31014184) Attached to: Heavy Internet Use Linked To Depression
In general I would agree, if the conclusion is debatable (even if ever so slightly). But if you find more dogs than cats in your neighbourhood, you could as well declare there are less cats than dogs, because it is formally equivalent. The case we are talking about now is actually the same degree of equivalence (I just did the math, it's worth to do it once to convince yourself).

Comment Re:The next line states... (Score 1) 360

by bonniot (#31013610) Attached to: Heavy Internet Use Linked To Depression
I get your point. But since the two sentences are statistically equivalent, it is completely irrelevant which method you used, they lead to the same conclusion. So you could very well examine the population of people who spend a lot of time on the internet, find that they are more depressed than average, and conclude that "people showing signs of depression are more likely to spend a lot of time surfing the internet".

Comment Re:The next line states... (Score 2, Informative) 360

by bonniot (#31013502) Attached to: Heavy Internet Use Linked To Depression

If you really want to be technical

OK, let's be technical. Let:

D be the number of depressed people; A be the number of internet addicted people; DA be the number of depressed and internet addicted people. T be the total number of people.

Then: "internet addicts are more likely than the general population to be depressed" means "the proportion of DA among A is greater than the proportion of D among T", or "DA/A > D/T", which is mathematically equivalent (since all number are positive) to "DA*T > D*A".

"depressed people could be less likely than the general population to be internet addicts" means "the proportion of DA among D is greater than the proportion of A among T", or "DA/D < A/T", which is equivalent "DA*T < D*A".

it is feasible that, although internet addicts are more likely than the general population to be depressed, depressed people could be less likely than the general population to be internet addicts.

No.

Comment Re:The next line states... (Score 1) 360

by bonniot (#31012826) Attached to: Heavy Internet Use Linked To Depression
Well, "spending a lot of time on the internet and showing signs of depression are correlated" would be good, but clearly not understood straight away by many people. One could argue it is better than to be wrongly understood by those people (and then even people understanding correlation can be influenced by the "wrong" formulations, when not paying full attention), and it could provide the opportunity to explain the concept. Yes, it's a pain, but then the fact that not knowing it makes you much more vulnerable to manipulation might justify it. Definitely this is something that should be given more attention in schools, until "correlation" becomes as much understood as "likely".

Comment Re:The next line states... (Score 1, Informative) 360

by bonniot (#31012144) Attached to: Heavy Internet Use Linked To Depression

No, it doesn't. The summary says "more likely"; that is, as internet use increases, the probability of depression increases. That is the definition of correlation. Implying causation would be using a word like "cause". (I know, tricky concept) Which the summary doesn't.

The word "cause" would assert causation. When the summary says:

People who spend a lot of time surfing the internet are more likely to show signs of depression

it suggests causation, because that does not sound the same as:

People showing signs of depression are more likely to spend a lot of time surfing the internet

One might agree that those sentences are formally equivalent (in an idealized version of english), but the way most people speak, those sentences suggest different causations.

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