Question About Logos

[jermaine]

I probably shouldnt ask it here but I figure that maybe someone has experience with this.

In my application I plan on having a few buttons that may have a google, gmail, hotmail logos on them. The point of the button is to direct the user to those email services.

My question is can i legally do this. Has anybody got in any trouble doing something like this?

[dclamp]

i am sure they wont mind, but you may want to say in your app that those logos are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

[RobDog888]

No its not legal to use those icons in your application. You can point your apps buttons to those services no problem but to include those icons in your app for distribution is definately against the licensing and terms of usage.

[jermaine]

ooo ok..

thanks.
Last thing I need to do is get sued because of a freeware program.

[Hack]

You can point your apps buttons to those services no problem

Even though this might be fine and dandy, I would have reservations even including the links without checking with the webmasters on the sites I wanted to link to, if, for no other reason, than a courtesy.

[RobDog888]

Um pointing a an apps button to Google, for example, is nothing more then adding Google to your favorites or bookmarks.

If your button ShellExecutes the google url there is no issues with that.

[Hack]

I was referring to mail sites not standard search engines.

I put a link to Google in a couple of my programs (I have no clue why that was asked for, but it was, so I did.)

[RobDog888]

The point of the button is to direct the user to those email services.

This is what he is doing which is fine. Just dont use their logos.

Btw, Microsoft places logos in their IE favorites by linking to the favorite.ico files in the temp internet cache directories. This could be done too for your button but only after the user visits the site. If they delete their temp files they will lose the "logo" too.

[dclamp]

well what about firefox. they distro with the "G" google logo, a GoDaddy Logo, and a few others for the search box on the top.

[RobDog888]

Are they embedded in FF or are they just uring a rss feed and lining to the sites favico's or something? I highly doubt they are distributing them but I can find out from one of the FF developers.

[dclamp]

well i am not really sure. I just noticed it when reading your post

[RobDog888]

Im quite sute they are linking to them but I'll know later tonight for sure.

[si_the_geek]

Those are syndicated, basically using the same sort of thing as a favicon (but specially designed for the Fx search I think).

[Kasracer]

Don't guess on the issue. All of these companies have media sections on their website that you can look at. They usually offer their logos for free in high quality and spell out exactly what you can and can't do.

Some places will let you use the logo as you want. Some will not. The safest way is to check each place. You can also contact them and request special permission to do so.

[mendhak]

I think it's a benefit-of-the-doubt scenario. Because these sites/services are so large, they have no control over who links to them in what way, but they're fine with it as long as they get traffic.

I doubt you'll be able to find logo guidelines on all of the major email service sites, but when you don't find one, have a look to see what other people have done.

[sciguyryan]

Are they embedded in FF or are they just uring a rss feed and lining to the sites favico's or something? I highly doubt they are distributing them but I can find out from one of the FF developers.

They are embedded directly with the permission of the site owners. The files are not linked to at all and are pre-distributed in a date URI format.

[RobDog888]

Thanks Ryan but what is the process of obtaining permission? Do they have a special form to submit?

[sciguyryan]

As far as I know they are normally contacted through their sites.

More often than not it's better to ask and avoid all the issues in the first place but actually using the logo in your application is different than say linking to it. Redistribution can be a violation of copyright here while linking would not necessarily be one.

[RobDog888]

So then the best question to ask them is if you can distribute their logo and if not can you link to it for use in your app. If you embed then you need a way to update/validate the logo as once in a great while they change/update their logos.

[sciguyryan]

That pretty much sums it up yes. Those of you who use Firefox will notice that the Google logo has yet to be updated as it has to be done manually (they ask for permission to use each new logo).

[RobDog888]

Thats got to be a pain.