Adsense issues that are bound to surface at some point

has anyone considered these yet?

[ownerrim]

Scenario 1: publisher x has a high traffic site with considerable adsense income. publisher x gets nailed by a city bus while crossing the street. What does the spouse of publisher x do with regard to the adsense account? Contact google and request a change of payee? Request a new account since the site will now be owned and operated by the surviving spouse?

Scenario 2: publisher y is getting divorced. the spouse of publisher y is demanding a portion of publisher y's adsense income. publisher y, in an angry retort, informs the spouse that the adsense code can be removed resulting in no income, that checks can be held by google at the publisher's request resulting in no income, or that the checks can be sent to a different address. The spouse then informs publisher y that the attorney involved will be contacting google regarding this matter. What does/will google do in such a situation?

I'm sure these things will come to pass at some point. Speculation as to how they'll take shape?

[dazzlindonna]

I can give some advice on scenario 1, although not in direct relation to adsense.

I have a client who passed away several months ago, leaving his internet interests to his wife. These sites do not use adsense, however they bring in tons of cash from affiliate sales. It has been a nightmare to get the affiliates to send the money to the wife. Instead the money continues to go to the "estate" and the estate's attorneys are getting fat while they sit around and do nothing but rake in the money for doing nothing. Of course, the estate's money is also just sitting there. The solution: start a new affiliate account, and change all the code to the new account. This won't be as easy with adsense, since Google is not likely to allow the switch. So, I strongly suggest that you do not wait around for something to happen. Immediately hire a lawyer to send a letter to Google along with all necessary proof (death certificate, portions of will leaving internet interests to spouse, etc.) and requesting that a new account be allowed to opened on the sites (or a change over if G allows that).

I am NOT a lawyer, but this has just been based on a recent experience.

P.S. If you intend to leave your internet interests to someone, make sure you include all relevent usernames/passwords to hosting companies, domain registrars, etc. in your will. Otherwise your spouse will be lost trying to figure it all out.

[seogrrl]

Unfortunately I can answer number 2.

Alimony is based on your highest income you earned while married (at least in the state of Pennsylvania) When my sweetheart of a husband sued me for alimony years ago, I wasn't making that much maybe 30k, but during the dotcom bubble, I made 140k in 6 months. Their lawyers went off that years taxes although that's not what I was making after the dotcom bubble popped. My alimony was $2700.00 per month. They didn't have to contact anyone, they simply made me cough up my tax returns and called that my earning potential.

Thanks to search engine optimization being what it is today and my google check as well as incorporating after my separation I can laugh at the pennies I am paying.

So to sum it up, alimony goes off your earning potential and if you made it once, they believe you better make it again.

SEOGrrl

[mquarles]

P.S. If you intend to leave your internet interests to someone, make sure you include all relevent usernames/passwords to hosting companies, domain registrars, etc. in your will. Otherwise your spouse will be lost trying to figure it all out.

Good advice, but let me modify it slightly and suggest that you include a separate letter of instructions for your spouse rather than including that info in the will, as wills are typically public records.

MQ