"But it's not fair! What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?"

Google Gets Spanked!

"But it's not fair! What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?" - Stephanie Milani, Google Litigation Paralegal

Just stumbled across an inspirational story about how one small company went after Google in Small Claims Court after having its Adsense account disabled and $721 in earnings confiscated.

The first half of the article is very Kafkaesque as the lone entrepreneur, Aaron Greenspan, attempts to obtain answers from a large bureaucracy as to why his account was terminated and monies owing confiscated. He tries emails at first which evoke no response. Then he switches to phone calls in an attempt to get answers. Again, this goes no where until he resorts to trickery to try to get through to a human being at Google--any human being. When he finally does, they stonewall him as well. Apparently no one at Google--absitively posolutely no one!--knows why a particular Adsense account has been disabled.

The bottom line is that if someone or something at Google deems you guilty, you're guilty and that's the end of the matter. You're given no chance to defend yourself or to even find out why your account was disabled.

But our hero persisted. To make a long story short, Aaron decided to go after Google in Small Claims Court which doesn't allow lawyers within its chambers and won. The court awarded him the $721  plus $40 in court costs.

You can read the details at Why I Sued Google (and Won).

To answer your question Stephanie Milani, it would be wonderful if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google in Small Claims Court. It's long overdue. Fight the power!

Frankly, I don't know why anyone bothers with Adsense anymore. The program's payout to publishers has dropped to about 10% of what it was back in 2003, yet Google continues to do well. This tells you that Google is pocketing that additional 90% of advertising revenue.

Moreover, when was the last time that you clicked on an Adsense ad? I have probably clicked on one or two in the past twelve months. Like most people, I no longer even see them and when I do I tend to dismiss them as promotions for questionable or downright shady offers.

Spread the word to Adsense publishers, in Small Claims Court you stand a chance of winning against the Google monopoly.

Aaron Greenspan gets my vote for hero of the week.

--

PS And here's why Adsense's sister program, Adwords, is also a bum deal for the majority of businesses.

Comments

[Rick]

I use Adblock plus for Firefox and never see Google's adsense crap. Stupid ads!

[SEO Dude]

Google delivers disappointing search results despite all the fanboi generated hype. It's time for someone to launch the UnGoogle which delivers results after eliminating the crap Goog serves up on its first two SERPs. Feel free to run with this idea.

[Captain Omerta]

Google analytics is one more scam from Googlescam, Inc. Once you install it it's next to impossible to get rid of it completely.

[Caveat Emptor]

Concerns Over Google's Monopolistic Actions Make Their Way to DOJ

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/080915-104642

[FSK]

Regarding Analytics, what are you talking about "Impossible to remove"? Just remove the Analytics code from your site! If your pages don't serve the code, then you're not giving data to Google anymore.