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Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit

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21–25 of 25 posts

Re: Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an understatement, if it gets certified it should be fascinating :-). When Blekko crawls the web when we find hundreds or thousands of different web sites using the same AdSense ID its a pretty good sign that the content will not be useful.

Chuck, the problem--and IMO it's legit--is that Google allows you sign up, you earn some money and then for no explained reason you lose all of it as they close they your account. Now Google could screen all sites first (not likely) or pay the money earned till banning day. Sure it's written on the TOS, but doesn't seem fair and maybe it's illegal.

Oh I totally agree, there is an onus on them to be more transparent about what they are doing. The scale is what I find amazing. I don't doubt that clever spammers will sign up a couple of million AdSense accounts over a weekend, and try to pull some click fraud pennies out of them. It is just too tempting a target for "free" money. If you recall there was an event where Google would deposit a small amount of money in an account, and you had to verify the amount to "prove" you owned the account, and some smart chap started creating thousands of bank accounts and accounts and when the pennies got deposited withdrawing them and closing the accounts. I believe it was Brad Templeton who said "Give me a way to steal a penny over the Internet and I'll show you how to make money fast."

That is the challenge I see Google facing, on the one hand AdSense is a thing, on the other its prone to fraud.

Re: Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit

#22
Is there any precedent for ToS agreements not being allowed to be "one-sided" as Google AdSense's ToS is claimed to be in this lawsuit? Or more specifically, any previous cases regarding the legality of "We can close your account for any reason & keep your account's funds" clauses?

Re: Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chuck, the problem--and IMO it's legit--is that Google allows you sign up, you earn some money and then for no explained reason you lose all of it as they close they your account. Now Google could screen all sites first (not likely) or pay the money earned till banning day. Sure it's written on the TOS, but doesn't seem fair and maybe it's illegal.

Oh I totally agree, there is an onus on them to be more transparent about what they are doing. The scale is what I find amazing. I don't doubt that clever spammers will sign up a couple of million AdSense accounts over a weekend, and try to pull some click fraud pennies out of them. It is just too tempting a target for "free" money. If you recall there was an event where Google would deposit a small amount of money i…

The scale is what I find amazing....That is the challenge I see Google facing, on the one hand AdSense is a thing, on the other its prone to fraud.

I don't really feel sorry for Google at all. They are making $10 to $12 BILLION a year in profit, even after paying amazing salaries, benefits and spending money on a lot of unrelated stuff. So they can hire, 100, 100 or 10,000 new employees to screen better and to reduce false positives. Google is used to profiting from the web while having no responsibility (at least the new Google,) but now no one is buying their shtick. Soon or later the algo changes that shift traffic from other sites to Google and from small sites to larger sites (likely advertisers) will be scrutinized as well.

Re: Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit

#24
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, Google keeps all the money it (allegedly) collected improperly, but hey at least no lawyers get rich.

Nah, Google refunds fraudulent ad money

I'm not saying anything about the merits of the suit. The complaint alleges that Google doesn't consistently refund the money.

Re: Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit

#25
I haven't been cancelled, but Google and rip-off seem to go together for me. My CTR, CPC, and RPM would all mysteriously drop every time I raised a question or complaint. Earlier this year, after I was gaining traction with my complaints, my Google search impressions suddenly dropped by 80% in 2 days, and my revenue dropped from a high of over $1,200/mo in Q4 2013 to a rate of barely $300/mo now. I'm not a class member, but Google has no class at all.
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