Remember That AdSense Publisher That Sued Google & Won? Well, He Lost

In March, we reported that a Google AdSense publisher sued Google and won in court, based on a Huffington Post story. Well, it turns out that on May 22nd, Google took this publisher to appeals court and the court overturned the decision.

Google’s lawyers showed how this publisher agreed to the Google AdSense terms of service and then showed a screen shot of him violating those terms. I got my hands on the screen shot of his web site clearly showing users to click on the AdSense ads, which is against the AdSense terms of service. I also have obtained the court’s documents showing the decision has been overturned.

Here is the picture of the web page that violated Google’s terms of service:

Here is a copy as a PDF of the court document that shows that Google owed the plaintiff $0, overturning the ruling of $721 owed to the plaintiff.

Postscript: You can read the publisher’s side of the story, which has a lot more detail, over here.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.