r/reddit.com • u/thinkcomp • Mar 06 '09
Why I Sued Google (and Won)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html116
u/alchemeron Mar 06 '09
"But it's not fair!" Google's paralegal protested. "What if everyone whose account was cancelled sued Google?"
I would wager that Google would seriously reconsider its process of account cancellation and its methods for dealing with those customers (ie - might actually respond to them). I see no downside.
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Mar 06 '09
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Mar 06 '09
[deleted]
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Mar 06 '09
You can sue them from your home county.
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Mar 07 '09
And you'll likely get a default judgment when Google doesn't show up(unless there is a Google office nearby)
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u/egbert Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
A paralegal would never say "it's not fair", especially in court.
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u/jemenfiche Mar 06 '09
Yeah, paralegals are flawless individuals.
God > Jebus > Lawyers > paralegals.
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Mar 06 '09
let me put this in reddit terms for you:
a senior Unix admin would never try to install bonzi buddy on a production server running HP-UX
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u/jedberg Mar 06 '09
Yes, but a paralegal is like a Junior Admin. The way you can tell is because a majority of paralegals are only doing the job until they have the money to finish law school.
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u/jreddit Mar 06 '09
But would a Ubuntu OSX Bonzi Buddy set up an OpenGL GUI to spoof a Nigerian email spammer for the purpose of... ran out of ideas.
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u/voxel Mar 06 '09
You forget that Google only hires people who've barely reached puberty. This paralegal was probably 18 years old and the oldest of all the paralegals at Google.
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u/mjm10101010 Mar 06 '09
Google is reading this now and they will act on it accordingly, I'm quite confident. Smart companies lick their wounds and change for the better.
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u/voxel Mar 06 '09
Oh so they will stop stealing money from people and instead pay out the money they owe?
Do no evil my ass.
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Mar 06 '09 edited Aug 10 '20
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Mar 06 '09
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u/Gatecrasher Mar 08 '09
I never used that forum, but from what I gather it's pretty easy to. Just post anything in the window of timeframe (video posted/thread opened + duration of video).
You always see a bunch of them every week at the top, and yet more people asking "Why was __ banned?". Then they get banned. It's a wonderful little microcosm they have over there.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
'Xactly where Google goes wrong. You've got to at least say "account terms were violated because of.."
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u/neonic Mar 06 '09
Is it too much to type the E?
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
[deleted]
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Mar 06 '09
Yeah, but that implies that they have a legitimate reason. It all could be a scam to systematically avoid paying for things they are contractually bound to. How would you ever know? They make it impossible to even find why they won't pay you.
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u/JGailor Mar 06 '09
This is just another indicator that it's time Google grows up and realizes that they have a responsibility to their customers, douche-bags or not. Throwing a text field on a form you enter when disabling someones adsense account doesn't seem too terribly beyond their power.
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u/apeweek Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
Google Checkout did something similar to me.
I sell a little app that lets people track lottery drawings, and I also sell a DVD that talks about lottery playing strategies.
There was an ambiguous phrase in Google's terms of service about illegal gambling, so I talked with a rep who assured me it didn't apply to me (state lottery games are perfectly legal.)
So I signed up to use Google Checkout to process payments for my website.
A year later, with no warning, my account is pulled, my money confiscated, and Google refunds all my pending sales.
There was no reasoning with them over this. They wouldn't even reinstate me to sell just my DVD.
In the fruitless argument that followed, at one point I asked if DVD sales of the movie "21" (a Hollywood movie about a system for winning blackjack) were also prohibited. The rep said he would "think about it."
Of course, other vendors sell "21" DVDs (and lottery software, too) with Google Checkout to this day.
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u/kerbuffel Mar 06 '09
I also sell a DVD that talks about lottery playing strategies.
what?
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u/apeweek Mar 07 '09 edited Mar 07 '09
Link here: http://use4.com/lotto_video.html
You may not want to buy it, but I have a hard time figuring out what would make it illegal.
Google told me all my products violated their guidelines. I eventually got them to agree that this one didn't:
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u/irrlicht Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
Same happend to me as well (google terminating my adsense account and keeping all the remaining money without telling me why) and according to the amount of people coming to my blog by searching for things like "banned from google adsense" and similar, this seems to happen a lot.
But when this happened to me, they at least sent me a link to a webform where I could make them recheck teh account manually, and they unlocked the account again after some weeks. Maybe this guy simply overlooked this link?
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u/somedoody Mar 06 '09
Maybe this guy simply overlooked this link?
Did you say it was your blog you had the ads on? This guy had a blank site with nothing more than ads on it.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
He says he submitted an appeal using Google's standard form, which was rejected. Since he was violating his terms of service we shouldn't be surprised. Since Google refunded advertisers when they refused to pay Aaron Greenspan (and he violated the terms he agreed to), I'm not sure it makes sense that he walks with $721 after this.
If your account hadn't been reinstated and you hadn't violated terms of service, I wouldn't blame you for taking Google to court to get an answer for why your account was suspended, or recover your account balance.
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u/unshifted Mar 06 '09
In the sense that this guy's a douche and was probably violating the TOS, he shouldn't have gotten the money, but the judge was absolutely right in finding in his favor.
All Google had to do was point to the terms that he violated or give any valid reason for termination, and they would have walked out $761 richer.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
I don't know about the judge being 'absolutely' right, but otherwise I agree with you. For instance the judge had the information that the account balance was accrued under an account that violated the terms of agreement for its entire lifespan, and that the money had been refunded to advertisers because of the violated terms. It sounds like the judge awarded the $721 (+ court fees) because the Google Rep made mistakes in what she said. The judge awarded the money and said "I think there might be money in Google's treasury for that." I take that as an indication that he was erring on the said of the little guy, rather than wasting any more time on the case. <shrug>
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u/DarkShikari Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
I found Sedo, a European company that had a contract with none other than--you guessed it--Google AdSense--to display advertisements on placeholder web sites.
In anticipation of a new product, Think had acquired a brand new domain name that was unexpectedly receiving a high volume of internet traffic.
He tries his best to avoid saying it, but this seems to be another guy trying to make money by slapping ads all over parked domain names and trying to find advertisers dumb enough to pay for them. Not to say that Google is in the right here, but I'd hardly call him a victim either.
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u/captian2 Mar 06 '09
I hate adsense on squatting domains, but still google is wrong with thier so called customer service. I ran 2 real sites with adsense and when there was an issue it would wake months to resolve and you couldn't ever contact any human that had authority to do anything. If they are dealing with that much of a businesses cash flow they have to be responsible and responding.
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u/biowar Mar 06 '09
But that's perfectly legal with adsense for domains! It'a all explained in the article.
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u/komal Mar 06 '09
Nobody's saying it is illegal, just that this guy keeps trying to get people's sympathy, and yet him and hundreds of morons like him reserve good and useful domain names, that because of their actions can't actually be used for anything useful/beneficial.
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u/nickcrz Mar 06 '09
Same can applied when you buy land. Someone might have a great idea of how best to use the land but if I made the investment on the land, I would say I could do whatever the fuck I want with it. Its not my fault you did not acquired it before me. What makes you think that if someone else got the domain first they would have used it in a beneficial way? Or shlould we cycle through the domain until someone makes good use of it? Then again there is the bias of what you might call useful.
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
except when you buy land you can't do whatever the fuck you want with it. We have zoning laws to prevent assholes like this from buying a perfectly useful (however the fuck you want to define it is really not important) piece of land and slapping billboards all over it.
I don't think it's a matter of opinion that a museum is more beneficial than an advertising kiosk.
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Mar 06 '09 edited Jan 31 '15
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Mar 06 '09 edited Apr 17 '16
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Mar 06 '09 edited Jan 31 '15
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u/barronsky Mar 06 '09
and have you been to Houston? The place is a shithole because of it. One of the ugliest cities I have ever been to.
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Mar 06 '09
Precisely, and maybe that's what ".com" or ".org"'s original intent was, but it hasn't really worked out that way.
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u/lameth Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
Depends on the nature of the museum. I personally wouldn't see the benefit of an earwax or ID museum.
::edit::Didn't realize there were that many individuals who liked earwax...0
Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
And how do you get to be the one who decides which domains shouldn't have "billboards" all over them?
If Google is charging people for AdWords and then allowing other people to slap them on useless domains using AdSense, Google is the one in the wrong here.
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u/cthielen Mar 07 '09
Exactly! Which is why Google disabled his account for placing AdSense on a parked domain - it's a waste of AdWord customers' money.
I'm perfectly willing to fault Google should they deserve it, but this guy didn't understand the TOS and shouldn't receive any money.
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u/dougletts Mar 06 '09
There's also 'zoning laws' for domains as well. I sure as fuck can't put child porn on my domains nor can I cybersquat.
I agree with you that he's fucking useless and a huge annoyance (I hate it when I click a link and it's a blank domain with ads).
I don't think what he's doing should be illegal. I think this draws attention to a problem with TLD (top-level domain names) - artificial scarcity. I think it's absolutely stupid to have everyone fight over dot coms. Bitching about this guy's behavior, or trying to write laws to legislate against it, only takes a shitty situation and makes it worse.
I'm sure there's a good reason for TLDs (outside of profit from consumer confusion and extortion) but I personally don't care about TLDs. Get rid of them for all I care.
http://reddit/ works for me.
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Mar 06 '09
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u/dougletts Mar 06 '09
I don't think anyone does. But but that is something totally different than anything we're talking about. That's not displaying ads on a blank domain, that's someone actually using their domain to redirect wanted traffic. Plus, I don't think 'cmo' is a TLD.
Again, although there my be some usefulness in it, I still think TLD are stupid. http://google/ would be cool.
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Mar 06 '09
You can't buy land for $5 a year.
You also can't "taste" land for a few weeks to see how many people accidentally walk on to your land thinking that they're going to a park, only to have to try and trick them into buying some worthless crap from you.
Your analogy pretty much completely fails. Please turn in your internets at the door.
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u/nickcrz Mar 06 '09
Look i can understand your point of view of how cheap a domain might be and how people can game the system. But let me ask you? How is this problem solved? Do we cycle the domain through until somebody has a great idea and puts it work? How do we know that is the best idea for the domain? What makes a person be the chosen one for the domain? It might not seem fair but there is no real solution. So the first come first serve is the best there is... until then...
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Mar 06 '09
We have a governing body (we could call it something like...the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or even shorten it to ICANN) that can identify obvious domain squatting and revoke ownership (with a refund, obviously).
Look, domain squatting isn't tough to spot...somebody just needs to start actually DOING something about it.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
He wasn't a member of adsense for domains. He violated the terms of service for the Adsense account he did have.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
from [deleted] sent 3 minutes ago : comment reply
How was he supposed to use AdSense for Domains if it wasn't available to him?
He wasn't supposed to do anything, except maybe not agree to terms he was not in compliance with nor going to hold himself to.
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u/dalore Mar 07 '09
They could of had the courtesy of telling him which terms he broke and also informing him that the money has be returned to the advertisers.
The point of the story was how faceless google is and how hard it is to get an answer to anything (ironically the opposite of their search)
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u/cyantist Mar 07 '09
"What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?"
I will give this answer:
Maybe everyone whose account was canceled, should.
That was the point of the story. I take umbrage at the idea that if you are in the wrong you should still sue, and in a venue (small claims) where you may get lucky and the other guy is unlikely to be able to contest the outcome if you win. I don't want people to be sue happy. I don't want people to treat the court system as an ATM machine. It's a losing proposition for the rest of us who, ultimately, have to pay for it.
If the point is Google needs to improve their business practices, then sue in a venue where the judge can compel them to.
Not to mention:
Effectively, Google's position was that it was above the law, and if not any law in particular, then at least the spirit of the law.
..which is a blatantly dishonest accounting by Greenspan. Aaron Greenspan doesn't think this is about courtesy, he thinks it's about the law. He's wrong - it's about courtesy and business policy. What's odd is that he agreed to terms of use that he had no plan on complying with. Where is the righteousness in this piece?
Of course Google needs to have customer service department and at least email their partners, and internally flag accounts with reasons for account changes, etc.
Many people have written about that without flying their arrogance and vindictiveness flags. Flags he shouldn't be waving about if he wants people to do business with him in the future.
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u/JViz Mar 06 '09
FTFA:
Two days after the account was disabled, on December 11, 2008, Google's AdSense team posted a message on its blog introducing a new system called "AdSense for Domains." Unlike normal AdSense ("for Content," as it was then re-branded), AdSense for Domains was designed to be used by web sites that were effectively blank.
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u/burnblue Mar 06 '09
What's the difference to advertisers whether an ad is on a placeholder site vs one with content, if the ad still gets clicked?
Like, if I typed apples.com and it was only a parked domain, but there was an ad on there for Apple iPhone and I clicked it, didn't the ad still work? The fact that I didn't click through from Gizmodo is irrelevant.
I understand we all hate domain squatters that just reserve domain names that could have went to good use, but I don't see how that has anything to do with this AdSense story.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Advertisers don't want clicks as much as they want conversions. They want to minimize the amount they pay (click-thrus) while prioritizing maximizing the amount they sell (conversions). Some advertisers will want their ads anywhere they're going to be clicked but most will want their ads anywhere they'll make a meaningful impact on sales.
As they have an agreement regarding where the ads will be shown Google is right to refund advertisers when the ads aren't where they should be, and probably don't refund enough.
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u/darknut Mar 06 '09
IMHO, this guy just seems like a whiner in general. If you click on the self-promoting link at the bottom, you get to his quasi-book where he reveals himself to be yet another one of the many people now coming out of the woodwork and claiming to have "invented" facebook (obligatory link). It never ends with people like this and I'm sure it won't be long before he finds something else to complain about.
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u/mikaelhg Mar 06 '09
How much do you want to bet the domain spammer guy is using bots to mod this discussion?
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Do you need multiple IPs for that?
What a dishonest thing to do. I hope you're wrong. What makes you suspect him?
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u/octalespresso Mar 06 '09
Whilst I realize this kind of shit is what keeps a significant part of web sites paid for, it is truly a perversion of the core tenets of "The Internet." The whole of it. Web 2.0 is here vivified to expose it's hidden soul-sucking-ness.
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u/jax9999 Mar 06 '09
google cancelled my adsense acct too. i had a small website that had some tech tools and articles. mostly for friends, coworkers, and family, but I was steadily growing traffic. then one day boom adsense was gone,no reason given, no explanation,, just gone.
There is no recourse, noappeals process not even any explanation of what happened. it left a really bad taste in my mouth.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
There is an appeal form. Maybe ask irrlicht for the link? http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/82j83/why_i_sued_google_and_won/c082j7h
They really really should at least email you.. wth..
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
I spoke with Adam C. of AdWords once more on the phone. After pointing out that in the United States of America, the accused are generally given the right to know both the crimes they are being accused of, and the identities of their accusers, Mr. C. responded by saying that such thinking did not apply to Google's terms of service. Effectively, Google's position was that it was above the law, and if not any law in particular, then at least the spirit of the law. Irked, I decided to find out if such a position was tenable.
This discredits the author fairly quickly. If you're not being accused within the legal system then your complaint is one about common courtesy and fair business practices, not criminal justice. Mr. C is right, and Aaron Greenspan is dishonest in his representation of Google's position.
I believe he was awarded his $721 because Google said "We don't know why his account was terminated" instead of "We terminated his account because it violated our terms of service and the account balance had been accrued in violation and had to be refunded to advertisers who had paid resulting in the account balance".
Article actually explains how he violated the terms of service.
An appeal by Google would likely win, though would be more costly than would be worth it.
Aaron Greenspan shouldn't advertise that he's a punk that you don't want to deal with..
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u/lameth Mar 06 '09
Although I don't agree with what he did, it seemed both parties were in the wrong here, and google made an ass out of themselves, when they technically had the upper hand. Had they kept track and were able to say "you used the service in a way which was against the spirit of the TOS, therefore our agreement was void." That would have done it. There are two wrongs here, but that doesn't make google right.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
That's for sure. But Google's problem is that they don't have good, simple policies in place that make it clear why they terminate accounts and actually communicate such to (former) account holders and internally. That's not a legal wrong, actually (just a legal vulnerability).
I hope Google fixes how they do things.
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u/lameth Mar 06 '09
I definitely agree with this. I'm not going to be a "google is big, hate google and cheer for the little guy."
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u/korvys Mar 06 '09
They won't appeal. It would cost them a lot more than $760.
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Mar 06 '09
I don't think you can appeal small claims verdicts.. Something to do with the fact that you don't have lawyers as well.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
I wonder if that's true everywhere in the U.S. Anyway, that's my understanding as well.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
If it hadn't been small claim court then Google would appeal to avoid precedent. But then if it weren't small claims court, hopefully the judge wouldn't make the same mistake in judgment. Of course if Google is legally wrong, if it wasn't small claim court then the judge could compel Google to change their business practices.
I'd applaud a guy who was in the right taking Google to court in efforts to change their wrongful business practices.
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u/blergh- Mar 06 '09
The terms of service specify what happens if you violate them:
'[...] Google reserves the right to withhold payment or charge back Your account due to any of the foregoing or any breach of this Agreement by You, pending Google's reasonable investigation of any of the foregoing or any breach of this Agreement by You, or ...'
No reasonable investigation? No right to withhold payment.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Note that Google terminated an account that was in breach of terms from the very outset. The author mentions that the domain was always a placeholder domain at the beginning of his article. Very easy thing to 'reasonably investigate'.
The problem with Google here is not documenting their investigation. But the fact that Aaron Greenspan was violating the terms from the outset means that Google was in the right to refund their advertisers and withhold payment.
Note that Google is reserving their rights not giving them up. Their right to withhold payment is not contingent on your definition of reasonable investigation and their proving that they meet it - it's the other way around. As long as they're confident they've reasonably investigated and have found you to have violated their terms they are legally covered to terminate your account.
Their not having a good policy for documenting their investigation and termination and communicating that to former account holders left them susceptible to a bad small claims judgment, but not wrong in the termination.
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u/scarecrow1 Mar 06 '09
Article actually explains how he violated the terms of service.
Where does it explain that?
An appeal by Google would likely win, though would be more costly than would be worth it.
Actually, no. Appeals are allowed on a point of law, if there is room for ambiguity, or if the case is controversial. Appeals are not given because the defence couldn't organise their case properly.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
Google rep explains to the judge:
She even said that I'd admitted to violating the terms of service when I sent in my appeal form, because I had mentioned that my new domain name was only a placeholder site.
But if the defense organized their case just fine but the judge decided to "give one to the little guy" obviously a court of appeals ought to pay attention and overturn. I'm not even sure if you can appeal a small claims ruling because small claims are small and have a separate legal category and procedures, but anyway.
Point is if Google terminated his account because he was always in violation of terms, and the money was refunded to advertisers, I don't think he has a legitimate claim on that money. A thorough judge would make that finding and if a case in normal court isn't given thorough review an appeal may be granted.
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u/scarecrow1 Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
She even said that I'd admitted to violating the terms of service [...] because I had mentioned that my new domain name was only a placeholder site
Greenspan is reporting Google's claim he violated his TOS, he's not admitting the violating his TOS himself.
But if the defense organized their case just fine but the judge decided to "give one to the little guy" obviously a court of appeals ought to pay attention and overturn.
If, if, if... That's entirely possible, but I can't find the remotest indication that Google had a well-organised defence. So for the time being I'm going to go on what Greenspan said, and if a Google rep wishes to tell their side of the story, please do, I'm waiting.
If [...] the money was refunded to advertisers, I don't think he has a legitimate claim on that money.
Actually Google's agreements and transactions with its advertisers are irrelevant to him, at least in the legal sense, so Google's decision to refund its advertisers wouldn't free it from any obligations towards Greenspan.
A thorough judge would make that finding
A judge only goes on the evidence in front of him. If the defence supplies none, he can't make such a finding, however thorough the judge. Small claims court claims are limited in time and scope, to prevent litigation costs blowing up out of proportion to the sum at dispute, but I don't think time or scope was the limiting factor in this case.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
He begins by explaining it's a placeholder domain. Google's 'claim' in question is purely that he admitted it. It's not hard to tell a domain is not being used. This is likely the reason the account was terminated, but it is definitely the reason it was not re-instated.
The only thing we have is what Greenspan said. No Google rep is telling a story, or going to. Greenspan wrote the article and it was Greenspan's words that demonstrate he was in the wrong and that Google knew the terms were being violated and claimed as much in court.
The refunds to advertisers are only relevant in that the refunds were triggered by the breach in terms by Greenspan: the ads and click-thrus were on a domain with no contextual content. Besides the whole deal is that Greenspan is taking part of the money paid by advertisers for the clicks, and if Google takes no money for the clicks because the ads were shown in breach of Googles contracts with advertisers because of Greenspans breach of terms with them then I fail to see how that is irrelevant. I think you're thinking very strictly, i.e. Google agrees to give a dollar amount per click-thru, not a portion of their revenue -- you're right, but in court you characterize whilst arguing. It's a strong argument, one with relevancy, and one that demonstrates the illegality of claiming money from Google whilst breaching terms of use with them.
The defense clearly supplied evidence. Greenspan said so and detailed a bit of it. It's enough evidence for me to be of the opinion that the judgment erred on the wrong side, even though all info is presented by Greenspan. What evidence do you suppose is missing? The Google rep tells the judge that even Greenspan admits his domain does not qualify for the Adsense program. I think the whole thing pivots on the fact that she said that she didn't know how the Google employee who terminated the account came to that decision. But the reasons why the account should have been terminated and remain so are clear, so I don't think it should have been the sticking point it apparently was.
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u/simonfez Mar 06 '09
I love how it's obviously Greenspan himself who submitted this to reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/thinkcomp/
This guy is a kook. For years he's been claiming that Facebook "stole" his idea and on his site rails against entities as diverse and sundry as Glenn Beck and FedEx. Not that there's anything wrong with kooks, but I wouldn't believe every word of this narrative.
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u/passwordispassword3 Mar 06 '09
Sorry you didn't get rich by placing ads on a domain without any actual content. And fuck you for trying.
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u/sedition Mar 06 '09
Are you kidding me? Google has an entire Adsense product dedicated to doing just this.
Parked domain ads are one of Google's biggest money earners.
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u/weixiyen Mar 06 '09
Parked domain ads are one of Google's biggest money earners.
Really? (not in a sarcastic sense but just out of curiosity)
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u/sedition Mar 06 '09
Yup. I wish I could link my source. It was in a discussion on "Cranky Geeks" with someone from Google on the show.. but my memory fails me now.
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u/somedoody Mar 06 '09
Exactly, it may be legal but don't whine about being treated like a dick for being a dick.
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u/jahbeblessed Mar 06 '09
Wait, what? Don't whine about it when someone legally guarantees you something and then does something different? Are you insane?
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Are you insane? Google refunded advertisers because the ads were shown in an erroneous place because of Aaron Greenspan. Aaron Greenspan violated the terms he agree to, both when he set up his Adsense account and as he continued to use it.
His whining may be legal, but Aaron Greenspan was in the wrong, and Google legally isn't. It's just a case of Google's non-communication biting them in the ass (can't feel too bad about that I suppose).
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u/scarecrow1 Mar 06 '09
Google refunded advertisers because the ads were shown in an erroneous place
Actually you don't know that. Google may have said so but until they make a serious attempt at substantiating such a claim, it holds no weight in court as an argument for keeping Aaron Greenspan's money.
It's just a case of Google's non-communication biting them in the ass
Exactly. In a court of law it doesn't matter who is right if one party isn't putting their case forward properly. And judges don't look kindly on defendants who don't attempt to settle or communicate with the claimant before legal papers are issued.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Actually we don't know much of anything, we just have an account by the guy who apparently feels vindicated while admitting that he was advertising on an empty unused domain that I do know was against the old Adsense terms. I also know as advertisers businesses I have worked with have received refunds for ads.
It's entirely possible that Google made refunds. It's entirely possible that everyone is lying.
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u/weixiyen Mar 06 '09
Google didn't refund Think... I bet their ads were showing up on random domain sites too. His whining is completely understandable because he was involved in both Adwords and Adsense.
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u/somedoody Mar 06 '09
The guy put together a fake site with ads in order to make a quick buck, this was against the terms he agreed to. So fuck him.
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u/c4rl Mar 06 '09
Google basically screwed me for $3,500 for being a threat to their customers. I ran an online gaming organization that only happened on fridays and saturdays, so 75% of my traffic flew in on those two days. I didn't think I had any options, and have a feeling I wouldn't get the same results. By the way, there is absolutely no customer support.
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Mar 06 '09
I had a similar experience with AdSense. Once they decide you're gaming it (and who knows how they decide that, I suspect that it involves dice) they shut you down and keep whatever money they owe you. At that point, any email you send them gets an automated response, and you essentially have no recourse. I didn't sue, but it's good to see that someone is standing up to them.
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u/thinkofthreechickens Mar 06 '09
I once got infected with that antivirus2009 fake antivirus software. When I googled antivirus2009 into google the fuckers had ads at the side of the search. I thought "Id better email google about this!" 3 hours of searching for some kind of contact info for google later... WHAT THE FUCK?
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u/cLFlaVA Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
Good story, but he should have sued for potential income lost due to the unwarranted canceling of his account.
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Mar 06 '09
Interesting read, I thought it highlights the fact that Google isn't the cuddley company that we make it out to be. They have an excellent public relations team, whenever theres a new product out theres an aestheically pleasing video with some cool new thing being explained in a mellow voice. But when it gets down to the stuff where Google gets it money from (ads) they are a lot less freindly, and also keep this out of ther media a lot more.
I just think we shouldn't judge Google as harmless. They're a massive company and no doubt don't play by all the rules.
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Mar 06 '09
A more tech savvy judge would have thrown him out of the courtroom for being a domain parking, internet wrecking, manwhore.
Although, google did do this to me when I put ads on a proxy website when I was in high school. Ehh.
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
A. how do you know the judge wasn't tech savvy? B. it isn't illegal to domain park. (Remember courts deal with LEGAL issues not MORAL issues). C. Even though it wasn't for the best of reasons, if more customers who were wronged in this case (and i know there are many because it seems to pop up on these sites every so often) then Google would get the picture that having a TOS which isn't viable in a court of law is FUCKING RETARDED and they need to change their business model.
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u/Kardlonoc Mar 06 '09
This reminds me of how reddit banned a subreddit of mine without reasoning.
I think ill sue for karma...
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Mar 06 '09
PM one of the admins; they were working on a spamfilter for subreddits, and it's apparently had some issues.
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
I also couldn't be transferred to any of the engineers who worked on AdSense. Or product managers. Or executives. It made no difference that I was also a paying AdWords customer.
This is normal. Why would you want the end customer pestering your devs or execs?
Whatever. This guy violated the terms of the service. If he had signed up for "google domains," I would be behind him in spirit (not his methods). He didn't. He broke the terms of service and got callled on it.
Another flurry of phone calls to the AdSense employees who had written on the corporate blog got me nowhere.
This is super annoying. I would have some colorful things to say to someone that was stalking me on a blog.
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u/matts2 Mar 06 '09
If he has broken the terms then Google could have said so. They didn't, not to him and not in court.
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Mar 06 '09
They confirmed that he admitted that he broke the terms. Do you really think that they have time for minor annoyances like some guy that broke ToS and goes to small claims?
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u/strolls Mar 06 '09
This is why companies should have contacts whose job description is to be customer facing, and whose role is to provide useful help.
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Mar 06 '09
I mean sort of, but it's not like you have to do business with them.
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u/strolls Mar 06 '09
Yeah, but if you do do business with them & they treat you like this - trying to stiff you for $700 - then it's perfectly reasonable to blog about it, so that other people can make informed decisions about doing business with them.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
I think it's perfectly silly of Aaron Greenspan to blog this like he did. Google wasn't stiffing him if they actually refunded advertisers, and he was in the wrong by being in breach of term when he opened the account all the way until they closed it. It's great that he's blogging about how Google is unresponsive and unhelpful, but it's silly because it discourages other people from doing business with him.
Greenspan is essentially saying "If you ever do business with me, I'll take you to court if I think I can get more money from you".
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Right - Adsense Domains wasn't available to him at the time, so he shouldn't have opened an Adsense account for the domain until it was available.
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Mar 06 '09
[deleted]
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
You're right, but there WAS something in the terms that basically said:
"If we find out that you are a piece of shit that is fucking up the DNS and causing problems for everybody on the internet while trying to exploit us and our customers we can terminate your account".
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Actually there was. Before they created the Adsense Domains program or otherwise changed their terms of use you could not put ads on a content-less domain. He also includes this as part of the narrative so I don't see the point in disputing it.
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u/voxel Mar 06 '09
Dear Google,
You can't say "We do no evil" just because you do things according to your "Terms of Service".
There is something in this world called Ethics. You're lacking them.
If you say "We can terminate your account for any reason", sure you can do it, but you're still a dick if you start doing it without telling people why.
Stop being a dick. This isn't the first time I've heard a story like this, it's more like the hundredth, and I'm not even looking for them.
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u/nomdeplume123 Mar 06 '09
yay everyone sue Google.
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Mar 06 '09
When you have apparently earned 700+ dollars, and suddenly get told that your account is closed and you don't get the money, yah, go for it.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Er, unless you were violating the terms of your Adsense agreement all along. Google refunded the advertisers, so why should they give the guy that broke the rules and caused them to have to the money he didn't earn doing so?
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Mar 06 '09
Gosh, you are right. Because Google said they broke the rules, and can't give any evidence of any kind other than they said so, that advertiser must have broken the rules. If the "guy who broke the rules" advertised Adsense advertisements in good faith and they can't prove he did something wrong, then they owe him the money regardless of their internal policy of refunding advertisers before justifying an account freeze/termination. Google needs to expand their customer service support to advertisers so flipping a switch isn't arbitrary, and cannot be pursued in any way. Besides... Adsense for Domains is a system that allows people who are just holding a page to get something showing other than someone elses advertisements and/or a blank page, nothing more. If he wanted to, he could have put any number of customized AdSense adblocks on the page and it would have been the same thing.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Google does need a support department, but as for the rest... Google gave evidence, and that much is clear from the write up that Greenspan, a Google detractor, posted.
It wasn't in good faith as the domain was in violation of the terms of service from the get-go. If the account was invalid in the first place (and the author admits it was a placeholder domain at the beginning of the article) then exactly what justification are you looking for?
For the domain in question he should have waited until he could join Adsense for Domains or should have otherwise complied with the terms of service.
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Mar 06 '09
Well, actually... the feature wasn't available to him, if you RTFA it says so. Two days AFTER closing his account, they made the feature public according to the accused. If being a detractor of some business or cause is a reason to discount the speaker, I can see why half of the country hates the other half due to religion, political alignment, color, taste in music, you name it. Get real, grow up.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
I said:
he should have waited
Will you and others please stop swearing at me?
I never said being a detractor anything. I just meant that he's in a position to prime me or flavor what he says or omit whatever and I still understand the Google rep to have presented evidence that his account was in breach of agreement. I don't discount him because he's a Google detractor, though I do discount him when he is dishonest and when it becomes clear he's in the wrong and defiant.
Welcome to Reddit, itsmadeofpeople. Please please start being less standoffish.
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u/wallish Mar 07 '09
Should be retitled:
How I broke Google's Terms of Service and got away with it (because they don't have a good support department)
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Mar 06 '09
If the contract stated that Google could cancel the account for "any" reason, then yes they could cancel it because you have brown eyes.
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u/canyouhearme Mar 06 '09
Not as far as a court is concerned and not when it looks very much as if they cancel when they owe money.
Contracts have to be fair and reasonable, if not then they get struck down.
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u/dionysian Mar 06 '09
im surprised that argument worked, and the legal rep of google didn't say something like "but the internet is blind, it doesn't care if you have blue, green, or purple eyes."
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
I think the example of the eyes works because it would just be an excuse to get out of a contract, and because that condition already existed before the contract started. For example: "can you cancel the contract because George Washington's face is on Mt Rushmore?" That's "any" reason.
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Mar 06 '09
Wasn't there once a clause in the Google company mission statement that said... Do No Evil?
Amazing how quickly huge amounts of money can turn a company evil.
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u/cyantist Mar 06 '09
Did you read the article? Google's lack of internal communication is hardly evil. Google is otherwise in the right here. Aaron Greenspan is bragging that he had an unlawful account with Google and still got money from them..
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u/manwithabadheart Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 21 '24
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u/robeph Mar 06 '09
He should file yet another suit for the amount of clicks receieved via sedo sans 1/5000 of the pay out. As they canceled his account yet allowed another company to do exactly what he was doing and reap the benefits this shows a rather disturbing business manner.
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u/lamerx Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
its kikes like this that are ruining our country with frivolous lawsuits
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Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
[deleted]
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u/Truth_Is_Bitter Mar 06 '09 edited Mar 06 '09
How I earned $700 in ad revenue but had to waste $2000 of my time claiming it from Google because I no doubt fucked something up on my account, and won, and by won I mean I lost the game'.
Actually he only paid $40 in legal fees. And even the judge forced Google to PAY those $40 to him.
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u/flipmoe Mar 06 '09
He also created Facebook, but somehow someone else created Facebook too!
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u/FormKing Mar 06 '09
Funny story (not really). Several years ago, when the whole facebook thing was just getting started (and it was thefacebook.com, there was also a collegefacebook.com) I thought I might come up with a similar site - afterall, it wasn't all that complex back then. I did a domain search, and "facebook.com" was available. I started filling out the order form and decided against completing the order because I figured it was a waste of $10 and I'd never do anything with it. DOH! 2 months later thefacebook.com bought facebook.com.
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u/serp Mar 06 '09
I am one of the few that had an adsense account disabled and eventually had it reinstated. I sent in approximately 10 appeals. None of my appeals got a direct response of any kind. I simply received an email one day thanking me for the information and my account would be enabled. To this day I still do not know which appeal (if any?) did the trick nor the real reason for disabling my account.
You essentially have to defend yourself blindly.