Trademarked Keyword Theft

John Mudd, via Blogcritics, has this post about a news item carried on Inman News wherein web-based real estate companies are buying familiar real estate monikers as Internet keywords that trigger paid placement ads on online search engines in other words they are capitalizing on the brand recognition established by their decades-old bricks-and-mortar competitors.

The article discusses the risk, by analogy to recent metatag cases, associated with such a practice as well as Google's policy involving the purchase of trademarks as keywords.

Mudd also indicates that Inman News couldn't find the placement, but see Agent Connect's ad here. My guess is that if you don't see it it's probably because the advertiser has exhausted their budget for the day.