Press & News

Brian Gannon Quoted in Atlanta Business Chronicle
02/28/2006

Brian Gannon was quoted in the February 24, 2006 issue of the Atlanta Business Chronicle in an article (“Legal duel over `geo-intelligence’ a win for Google”) which reports the results of litigation brought by Georgia-based Digital Envoy Inc. against Google Inc. In a 2004 lawsuit, Digital Envoy claimed its “geo-intelligence” technology – which pinpoints the geographical locations of Internet users so they can be targeted by advertisers and others – was being misused by Google in a program called AdSense. Digital Energy wanted payment from Google for use of the technology that was helping Google make lots of money via internet advertising.

Brian said geo-intelligence has definitely helped advertisers reach desired customers. An Atlanta plumber, for example, would likely not want to pay for user clicks based on the search term “plumber,” which could attract users from Georgia to California, Brian said. The plumber would rather pay for clicks that guarantee his ads reach only local customers.

Google’s AdSense program lets Web-site owners place links to other company ads. When someone clicks on those ads, the site owner gets a share of Google’s action. Such third-party site owners can make thousands of dollars per month, simply by providing the virtual real estate for the ads.

The lawsuit states Google never had permission to use Digital Envoy technology for the third-party AdSense program, which, Digital Envoy claimed, helped Google more than double sales in 2003. On January 24, 2006, a judge in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, dismissed the complaint, saying Digital Envoy was not entitled to receive any money from Google.