Details of the agreement were not made public, but inputting the name Geico and using the Yahoo search engine did not reveal any rival content. By contrast a search for Geico on Tuesday turned up a page of listings that not only included Geico but an ad for five competitive auto quotes from www.insurme.com.

A search for Geico on Google today yielded results that included an ad for free insurance quotes from www.NetQuote.com. In addition to information about rival insurers the NetQuote page included information about Geico.

Geico, headquartered in Washington, D.C., in a complaint filed last May in U.S. District Court for the Virginia Eastern District in Alexandria, charged Google with trademark infringement.

The insurer complained that Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. and Yahoo in Sunnyvale, Calif. were selling its trademarked Geico and Geico Direct names as search terms or key words to advertisers.

Google and Overture, it was charged, were selling the Geico trademarked names to "advertisers who have no connection to Geico and who seek to drive Internet traffic to their own Web sites when consumers perform a search using one of the famous Geico Marks."

Geico said the action was occurring without its consent and was causing confusion among consumers who used the search engines to search for information or contact the insurer.

Consumers using the Geico marks as search terms were directed to "sponsored listings" or sponsor matches, Geico complained and said that the action was diluting the trademarks' value and undermining the company's investment in expensive advertising to promote its product.

Google, in an unsuccessful motion for summary judgment, focused on Geico's charge that the ads caused confusion among consumers.

According to Google "Geico has come up with no evidence whatsoever that consumers are confused by the mere presence of a (to them invisible) keyword triggering the appearance of an ad result."

Google said that, "When Geico surveyed consumers abut ads placed by the keyword ?geico,' but without the word ?geico' in the title or text of the ad, not one of those consumers was confused."

Google also contended that even if an advertiser were infringing on the copyright, "Google does not induce that infringement. The advertiser is not writing its text at Google's urging, and it is not acting as Google's agent."