The Delhi High Court in India on May 22 handed down a ruling that could change the way Google sells keywords to advertisers around the world. Judge Mini Pushkarna, in a 163-page document, found Google guilty of trademark infringement via the AdWords platform and ordered the plaintiff - sanitary-ware maker Hindware - 3 million rupees (about 31,600 dollars) as symbolic damages.

The ruling rejected Google's defence that it is a "passive intermediary" - that it simply places the ads. No. The judge finds that the sale of the plaintiff's trademark as a keyword, without its consent, constitutes an act of infringement. Translation: Google takes money from competitors to show their ads to people searching for your brand. And now that is illegal - in India.

The reaction came fast. Nithin Kamath, founder of the brokerage platform Zerodha, wrote on X that his company has been fighting this problem for more than a decade. "When someone searches 'Zerodha', the traffic should go to Zerodha. But the first thing that shows up are ads taking the user to competitor pages." The same was confirmed by Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho. This model - "pay up, or your brand will be charged to someone else" - is the core of Google Search-ads' business, and the industry has no alternative.

Google replied with its official policy. "We do not allow competitors to use protected terms in the text of the ads." The text of the ads - but not the keywords that trigger them. That is the substantive distinction the Indian court is fencing in. The company has pledged to work with local authorities where the rulings prove "too broad or incompatible".

Legal experts, though, have cooled the euphoria. Aparajita Rana of AZB & Partners says the ruling does not have "far-reaching impact" - Indian courts have already established that internet platforms can lose legal protection when they actively take part in illegal activity. But she adds something significant: this case defines that the very process of offering protected terms to advertisers, even when automated, can be considered "active participation". That is a definition that will knock at the door of every big platform.

The context: India has more internet users than any country except China. Every regulatory decision here ripples to places where local businesses are being squeezed by the same model. For European regulators - already pursuing Google with antitrust investigations - this ruling is a fertile precedent. For small Balkan businesses paying Google every year to buy back their own brand through ads, this is the first real signal that the practice is finally being put under a question mark.