Chennai-based kids activity boxes provider Flintobox has filed a legal notice against Amazon claiming that the online platform has unlawfully used its brand name as a keyword to drive traffic to its website, reports ET Tech. The company has sent Amazon a ‘cease-and-desist’ notice and is suing it for Rs 10 lakh in damages. According to Flintobox, on typing the word ‘Flintobox’ in Google, the first result was a sponsored ad for ‘Flintobox at Amazon’, although on clicking the link, no Flintobox products were available. Instead Amazon displayed other products by other companies. Essentially Flintobox is accusing Amazon of “(using) Google to steal a prospective buyer of Flintobox, and instead introducing them to some of their (rather irrelevant) products.” The startup mentions that it has trademarked the word ‘Flintobox’ for over 2 years, and as such, had raised a complaint with Amazon. Amazon however, disappointingly, did nothing to alleviate the situation, and according to Flintobox it had to submit its trademark documents to Google to remove the misleading ads. Subsequently the ads reappeared, but the the word “Flinto box” in the ad instead of Flintobox. Google refused to remove this ad, as the word with a space was not trademarked. The startup mentions that it once again wrote to Amazon only to get automated replies. However, Amazon Help did reply on Twitter eventually last week, citing that ‘Our automated systems pick keywords based on what users search and buy’, while also promising to to stop using the Flintobox trademark in…
