Judge issues gag orders on defendant for Google AdWords ads, but not for website

Last week Judge Susan Illston, presiding over Bowoto v. Chevron in the Northern California Federal District Court, ordered Chevron to stop running Google AdWords advertisements around the name of the plaintiff, Larry Bowoto.

This action seems consistent with the intent of a gag order.  "We're not going to fight the case in the press" she said, adding that plaintiffs would be forbidden from participating in rallies or protests surrounding the case.  

I find this puzzling, as she specifically asked if these ads were paid search results.  One of the co-counsel's for the plaintiff Bowoto in this case, EarthRights International, has a page about information that is second in the Google search results for "Larry Bowoto".

I find the judge's action to ignore published web pages about information around the case inconsistent and puzzling.  The search advertising in question is not the kind of expensive technique only available to corporate plaintiffs.  According to Google, there's no detectable traffic on the plaintiffs name.  I was able to place a $25 order for ads on Larry Bowoto's name while I wrote this article, and there's no competition for this keyword.

How Judge Illston could conclude that plaintiffs publishing web pages about the case that come up in the search results organically does not violate a gag order is a mystery to me.  If I were advising Chevron (I'm not, see Disclosure below) I'd tell them to hire a Search Engine Optimization firm immediately to help rank their own pages higher on plaintiff names and other keywords about the case.

If the judge is going to allow her counsels to continue to publish material on their websites as a loophole, I suggest Chevron drive a tanker truck through it.

Disclosure: Virilion is not engaged by any interested party to work on communications around this trial.