Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Terri Welles, Inc.
United States District Court for the Southern District of California
78 F. Supp. 1066 (1999)
Terri Welles (defendant), Playboy's 1981 Playmate of the Year, operated a personal website advertising her photos and spokesperson services, and included terms like 'Playboy' and 'Playmate' in her site's metatags, the hidden code that tells search engines what a site is about. Playboy (plaintiff) sued, arguing this use of its marks in metatags created initial-interest confusion — confusion about which websites deserve a user's attention, even without lasting confusion about who actually owns the site once the user arrives.
Whether using a trademark as a website metatag can be trademark infringement if the mark is being used deceptively to capture consumer attention and drive traffic to a website.