Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit(hbsslaw.com) |
Google AdSense Class Action Lawsuit(hbsslaw.com) |
First: This was bound to happen eventually - Google can't keep hiding behind the "we don't want to explain it to you because then others would exploit it" excuse for not reasoning out why they have cancelled an account. They just need better immediate fraud detection baked in (unfortunately a lot of unmitigated and spammy adsense accounts can be very lucrative in the short term).
Second: Good god it will be interesting to see who comes forth in this lawsuit. I have a few Adsense sites so I keep my ear to the ground in the forums. The people that whine about being shut down are most commonly 1) running some blatantly spammy sites or 2) won't show their site (so my assumption immediately jumps to them being spammy or doing something to game clicks (menu manipulation, adsense links that look like navigation, popups over ads, etc). Sure, there are exceptions, and I expect that will be the main plaintiff here, but it'll be interesting to see if any of the spam folks try to sneak in there.
Here is my comment reposted from an early discussion regarding the adsense that got flagged off the frontpage[1]:
I am not sure about the claims made on the post but there was something else that caught my eye a while back. I registered for Adsense when starting a side-project. I tried my best to follow all the requirements such as only 3 block of ads per page, no self clicking even if the ad was relevant to you etc. Since it was relatively new, it din't have much traffic. Then it started booming but it wasn't predictable by any manner, one day it would get featured on Reddit and then the traffic dies down, the next week it will another wave because it got featured in some popular blog, so on. However, despite the traffic being not predictable, the percentage of invalid clicks judged by Google remained the same. i.e. say your account shows up the earnings as $1200 but the check gets issued to you for around $1175, next month if you made $1500, your check will be for $1468. The reason Google claimed for this difference was the final audit that looks for invalid clicks right before a check gets issued. I thought it was crazy that I could easily predict what I would be actually getting instead of what is shown to be earned, moreover my super ability to predict invalid clicks. So I decided to keep a log of the difference for ~ a year, and what do you know, the difference in final audit was almost always the same percentage despite huge variations in traffic. I am happy to post the log but I will be breaking one of the adsense rules of revealing your earnings and thus risk losing my account. Anyways I am not bothered by it anymore, I just learned to write off the difference as expense and/or consider it as "protection money" that needs to paid. Too bad there aren't any good alternatives. Adsense is by far the best paying ad-network but if it had less shady tactics and better support I would have definitely put it on my recommendation list.
Justice.
1. This is the second class action attempt launched against Google by this trial-lawyer outfit: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/05/02/class-action-lawsuit...
2. This Steve Berman guy behind the suit was a Microsoft lawyer, it's notable becase another Microsoft lawyer tried and failed to sue Google on ad/antitrust grounds a few years back: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110901/14553415771/court...
3. Ultimately a judge would have to decide if this ever goes forward but reading the the two fillings for the two separate lawsuits, both are no more that just PR statements with news clippings.
The purpose here is likely an attempt at obtaining documents via discovery, doubtful it goes that far, it's an obvious money-grub scheme.
From Wikipedia:
Berman helped found his namesake firm in 1993. He was lead attorney in individual and class action cases against Enron, Washington Public Power Supply System, Purdue Pharma (over OxyContin), Exxon (with respect to the Exxon Valdez oil spill), Boeing, Intel (over alleged monopoly practices), Michael Milken, the Rio Tinto mining company (with respect to human rights violations and environmental destruction in New Guinea),[3] and VISA and MasterCard (in which he achieved a $3 billion settlement). He was also instrumental in the state attorneys general’s litigation against the Liggett Group and subsequent $216 billion settlement, against the tobacco industry, serving as special assistant to the various states. He was lead counsel for Microsoft during part of its defense against antitrust claims.[4]
Even worst, he uses Microsoft Windows, making this a clear Microsoft smear against the angelic Google. :)
>>This is the second class action attempt launched against Google by this trial-lawyer outfit As if Google is any better than them.
Google will probably end up paying for the clicks not deemed individually fraudulent, TOS or not.
> Our work includes representing consumers, municipalities and other groups in cases against unscrupulous corporations or individuals who attempt to subvert principles of fairness and equity in the quest for ill-gotten profits. We also work to protect the interests of intellectual property owners, whistleblowers and those seeking enforcement of human-rights laws.
>Hagens Berman was founded in 1993 by attorneys Carl Hagens and Steve Berman, with the goal of representing plaintiffs in class actions and multi-party, large-scale complex litigation. We have stayed true to that purpose and along the way have recovered billions of dollars for our clients, while winning the praise of judges and the accolades, and awards of our peers.
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.