Google lies about click-fraud refunds and tried to destroy us – ad biz AdTrader, an online ad agency, has accused Google of reneging on promised ad payments, stealing clients, and fraud. In a complaint filed in a US district court in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, the ad biz claimed Google failed to refund almost $500,000 paid to place ads on websites that drove invalid traffic, in violation …
Yeah, but ultimately in the chain, they will have minimum wage employees, and when this revenue doesn't come through, we all know who the victims will be.
This is purely disgusting and immoral business activity from Google. If the previous actions and these allegations aren't enough for governments around the world to start full head-to-toe investigations of Google's practices, then they will carry on forever.
Not only do I not have a lot of sympathy for them as one of the ad-placement companies that stink up the Internet and should be blocked by default by any major browser - if they are able compare both sides of the ledger then they are most certainly partnered with and/or managing the fake content sites that are being penalized by Google. If it wasn't for the collateral damage I would encourage Google to turn the screws a bit more....
"alleged disgusting and immoral business activity"
True, it's just alleged at this point. But (a) I think it's pretty well known in tech circles that a large %age of "clicks" aren't clicks at all (b) Google has plenty of public history of screwing advertisers, no doubt also a few others kept quiet with a hidden payoff.
Google and their "Youtube" could use a little review as well. I have to wonder about their mysterious supposed "algorithm" (sic) and how they're withholding the conditions on how to not get "Demonitised" during a video's peak of ad revenue earning period. There HAS to be serious contract law issues there.
Off topic ... but ...
This seems like a place to punt the question.
Did Google run an organisation wide Gmail service for the Democratic Party in the 2016 US election - or was it just John Podesta that just happened to have a Gmail account?
I'm well aware of Gmail account numbers
The leaks of DNC emails did huge damage in he 2016 election and the provenance of the leaks has not really been elaborated while people chew through the content.
As it turns out Google didn't have much to do with it
Try GitHub
As far as your last paragraph is concerned - up yours you tosspot.
Anyone who sees Youtube content/DMCA claim can tell you Google must be pocketing or (facilitating others too and taking a cut) fraudulent systems. Either the fake channels (bot generated to get kids/babies click throughs... yes that's a thing now) or the DMCA that just so happens to hurt the content creators only, not the corporations or Youtube (who just either turn off advertising and block the video, or take over advertising even if 99% of claims are fake/fraud).
The fun part of this complaint is that, for once, someone sees both the in and out of Google's activities. Normally, Google can comfortably play both ends against each other because nobody ever gets the complete facts.
In this case, however, someone is actually in the position to properly tally deductions and payments - in other words, this is about hard facts. I reckon this will be settled out of court and out of sight as soon as the evidence is submitted because even Google can only suppress so much bad publicity.
Expect an update to Google T&Cs soon, banning organisations from being on both ends of the value chain. I'm pretty certain harsh words are spoken in their boardroom right now that someone didn't spot a company getting into the position to get actual facts out of Google.
After all, Google appear to have a LOT to hide..
I am not tech expert, but as a customer who uses google to provide lists of suppliers I have to rely upon their honesty. Some companies get to be too big to be controlled, here I cite the car manufacturers, who once they received your monies disappeared over the horizon when problems appeared. This is the situation that Google is in now, it plays governments off between each other to keep as much of its 'earned' monies.
It is time for these companies to be broke up, each part to be a company within its own country, not spread over like a jam sandwich with the strawberry sitting in the lowest and least caring country.
My share of the revenue quickly shot up to $50, $75, $80... before beginning to inexplicably slow. It took quite a while to reach $95, $96, $96.50, $96.75, $96.875, $96.9375, ...
Their payout increment is $100. I suspect that it'll NEVER reach $100.
They're holding *many* BILLIONS of dollars of other folks' money.
Too obvious when you see it first hand.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
