Will other brands join Tesco on “the moral high ground?” Or, will the supermarket chain find itself standing alone following its decision not to bid for trademarked keywords on Google?

In early April, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) decided to lift its long time ban that prevented advertisers from buying another advertisers trademarked term to generate its own ad—a practice the search engine already allows in the US and Canada. Previously, trademark owners could buy the search words at low cost—generating strong ROI on the terms.

Tesco, which spends some £2.2 million on online ads, believes that if other British brand owners refrain from bidding on trademarked terms, it will stop the cost of paid-search ads from soaring. The revised policy on trademarks goes into effect from May 5. High profile brands Diageo, Mercedes-Benz nd O2 told Marketing they would be reviewing their paid search strategy following Google’s policy shift.