practices on the Internet. It also gives more protection to non-profit and public activity than the Act, which is more constraining. Economic functions of trademarks Trademarks have two distinct yet related economic functions: the linguistic function and the trust function The linguistic function This function deals with the idea that trademarks help condensing complex information into a single word or symbol, immediately recognizable by consumers. This eventually reduces search costs for customers by simplifying the decision-making process and facilitating exchanges between the seller and the consumers. The trust function There are three classes or attributes of goods: search goods (consumers immediately know the quality of the products before buying) experience goods (consumers know the quality of the product by consuming it) and credence goods (consumers can't assess the quality of a product even after consuming it, because it is often too costly). A seller will often say that a product carries all three attributes; however, consumers are not able to verify such information and distinguish trustworthy products from non-trustworthy ones. Honest sellers will ask for a more substantial price in order to maintain the quality of the product. But consumers will not be willing to pay more for a supposedly trustworthy product. Eventually, the honest seller will have to exit the market. A market for lemons phenomenon will appear due to this information asymmetry, in which the actual price and the price that consumers are willing to pay decrease. In this context, trademarks fulfill a trust function to the extent that they provide a more reliable market for consumers, who can't immediately tell if credence goods are trustworthy or not. Honest sellers can develop and provide more desirable products. Relationship between the two functions Although the trust function is more important than the linguistic one, the two functions are closely related. Trademarks can indicate complex attributes that consumers can't verify by themselves, just like a name helps identify a person, but also their attributes. When the two functions are preserved, a normatively robust rule is created. An example of this is the tort of passing off: passing off usually frustrates both the linguistic function (by increasing search costs for consumers), and the trust function (by creating a "lemons" problem). On the other hand, when one or both the functions are frustrated, the rule is considered to be normatively weak. For instance, the rule regarding comparative advertising in Canada appears to