signor_john - 8:10 pm on May 2, 2009 (gmt 0)

Since Google keeps their revenue share secret, when times get tough for them, they can simply take more money off the top and pretend that business isn't as bad as it is.

Google's quarterly earnings reports tell you what percentage of AdSense network revenues were paid out by Google. If Google were "taking a bigger portion of publisher's [sic] earnings to meet the market expectations," we'd be able to see that in the quarterly earnings reports. (And yes, I know that Google doesn't reveal the percentage paid to any individual publisher, but that's beside the point in a discussion of Google's overall revenue share.)