It amazes me what people will do from time to time with their Google Adwords Marketing. However, this one from Homehound I doubt will endear them to the many agents who are not partners.
It seems that Homehound are targeting non partners and using their business names in Google Adword campaigns. So if you did a search for say First National Palm Beach or Ray White Sydney then a Homehound Advert appears. This much is fair play, what is not fair play is using these companies names in the actual Google Advertisement and then telling them to look at Homehound.com for listings.
Note: Tried this for LJ Hooker and no Google advertisement – a clean slate, seems Mr Hooker is strong on protection (settle E)
It is just another case of being too smart by half.
If a competitor of mine used my business name in search results to bring up their company then I would be fine with that, but if they also used my name in the advertisement I would be furious!
So, it is either an embarrassing gaffe by Homehound or another one of these silly adwords companies that promise the world and deliver litigation costs everywhere. This is not the first time this has happened and the big boys in Australia have been caught out as well in the past, but please, after all of the litigation around the world on this one, you would think companies would learn!