Beware of "Passing Off"

• What is “ passing off “?. (Writes Chris Parkinson AKA Mr. Before 'n' After) Passing off is when one firm deliberately uses a more established firm's « get up ». This means using the established firms branding identifiers. For example the transgressor will use similar or the same coloured packaging as the target firm or use a similar name. Anything to fool the public into thinking that the transgressor is really the established firm when they are not. The intention of course is to parasitize the target firm's well established and hard earned reputation (« goodwill »)and use it for the parasite's benefit.
• Supermarkets so this all the time. Supermarkets commonly use this despicable practice to replace established brands with their own brands. The established brands do not sue the supermarkets, simply because the supermarkets would then simply refuse to stock the established brands and the established brands would then have no outlets.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off
• Me-too imitator using google ads to pose as me! For several months now, (without my noticing it) a new imitator who is based very close to me geographically has been using google adwords to pass himself off as me. Using « Before 'n' After » (my trading name) in his ads and using a generic, anodine website address/trading name which could be simply a description of what Before 'n' After does, he constructed an adwords ad for the google search term « before n after » which mimicked as closely as possible the google search result for my own company.
•  Cease and desist! I have told him to « cease and desist » and he has changed the offending ad but is still using an adword ad for the search term “ before n after”. This may not be so blatant but in my opinion it is still tantamount to passing off. If you have been duped by this firm into using their services when you thought you were going to Before 'n' After, please contact me to book your car in. Phone 01788 832 255 We will inspect it and re-do the rustproofing to our own standard if necessary (we think it will be!) – free of charge.
• Google encourages this. After the « tesco-isation » of the UK which has ripped the heart out of the UK's high street, we are now being google-ised. Google wants to turn business owners into Google serfs, desperately trying to outbid each other on Google adwords. If you have the temerity to ignore adwords and use magazine advertising instead, customers looking for your website to use your services will be siphoned off to websites posing as you.
• Facts :

1. The google chrome browser has put the « search function » and the « browser function » into one field. This is obviously designed to get people used to just entering an approximation of the website address they want to find, so that they rely less and less on correctly spelling the website address and get used instead to being lazy and just putting the firm's name into the browser/google search.
2. There is now virtually nothing which differentiates google paid for ads from the « organic », unassisted search results. Whereas before there was a pale yellow shading for the paid for ads, on chrome on my screen there now is just a tiny « web results » in grey, barely readable, separating the two.
3. Google is siphoning off an ever increasing share of the UK's advertising spend. This could threaten the survival of print magazines. Google pays virtually no tax in the UK !

• Google turning us all into google serfs. Google is taking over the world and is intent on turning us all into serfs. Time to wake-up and pressurize the government into forcing Google to pay tax in the UK . Use Bing as your search engine. Your PC may well have been supplied (as mine was) with Google search as the default search engine on Internet Explorer. Turn it off and turn on Bing. Don't use google Chrome. Boycott Google.