Suit Filed Against Google By AdSense Publisher

[kevgibbo]

eWeek [oraclewatch.eweek.com] reports that Google AdSense are being sued by a woman who admits to clicking her own ads!

...complaint filed earlier this week in San Francisco federal district court, Theresa B. Bradley, a management consultant and resident of Washington, D.C. accuses Google of several counts of fraud and misrepresentation, including misrepresentation in commercial advertising, and of "willfull, wanton, fraudulent and malicious" conduct regarding its AdSense product. The suit also alleges misrepresentation in interstate commerce.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 1:46 pm (utc) on Aug. 31, 2006]
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[frakilk]

"Bradley denied clicking on the ads except to verify that the advertisers were not selling competing products."

Oh dear....

[incrediBILL]

If the judge has 2 brain cells left he'll toss the case.

Bradley denied clicking on the ads except to verify that the advertisers were not selling competing products.

Excuse me, she's a DOCTOR and can't read T&Cs?

If she didn't read the T&Cs and violated them it's not a defense, ignorance is never a defense.

Besides, if her staff took 100 hours to install AdSense they should all be examined closely as it only took my a couple of hours to deploy on 40K pages, it's not rocket science unless your website is a ton of static crap without even SSI to start with which is a different issue altogether.

Worst case, if she has patience, this lawsuit is blowing her credibility all to hell so maybe she should sue the lawyer that let her go forward with this suit.

I almost feel bad, she'll never work again...

[incrediBILL]

Oh my, I missed this one...

Bradley also filed suit against Yahoo on August 1 in San Jose federal district court.

Call SETI as I think the search is over!

[vincevincevince]

This is an obvious publicity stunt. What gets me is that she didn't take the time to bring the site up-to-scratch before bringing in the lawyers.

I do hope whoever granted her qualifications withdraws them.

[Scurramunga]

I do hope whoever granted her qualifications withdraws them.

They won't do that in fear of being sued.

[zCat]

Ouch. If I was Google I wouldn't want to have place contextual ads on pages which have been machine translated into other languages (they're good for a laugh though if you understand some of them).

[ann]

With that site she would have been better off keeping her yap shut :)

Besides, you never, never, ever click your own ads! That's what the preview tool is for for crying out loud!
Ann

[Scurramunga]

With that site she would have been better off keeping her yap shut :)

Watch out webmaster

[vincevincevince]

Perhaps it is time for Google to file a counter-suit seeking damages for:
a) Damaging the good name of Google by implicating them in a frivolous suit
b) Breach of contract (the TOS)
c) Fraud (clicking ads herself)

Sure a good lawyer could come up with many more points. Get it up to enough to make an example of her.

[incrediBILL]

I personally hope Google's lawyers bury her so deep that she'd have to look up to see my cat scooping dirt into the hole, but courts are bizarre, you can't expect contract law and logic to prevail.

[Lagamorph]

It appears the 100 hours includes the time taken to review the ads, so she's suing google for the time she spent clicking her own ads :)

[smells so good]

>> provides mental health services for children 0-7 years of age.

Was she consulting with her clients before making this move? I know that there are idiots in this world, still it amazes me to run across another one.

>> damaging her reputation and the reputation of her products and services.

Never heard of her or her products before this frivoulous lawsuit was filed. Frivoulous people create their own reputation.

>> Bradley also filed suit against Yahoo on August 1

Will they close her yahoo.com email account? Lady.. you run a corporate looking website, get a real email address! It might help your credibility and reputation.

Watch out MSN, she'll be looking for a load of Bill's loot next!

<aside>
She needs to spend 100 hours repairing the canonical errors and shopping cart.
</aside>

[frox]

100 hours = $250.000 . Is $2.500/hour her standard fee.

Plus, I only see 46 page on her site, so inserting adsense code takes abt 2 hours per page...

the article mentions "soft support women's jog bras", but I couldn't find them in the site, alas....

[Lipik]

Does she has copyrights on all these pictures ;-) on her so 90's website.

[simey]

I typed the co. name into google, 33 results.

2 million something ranking in alexa (FWIW)

$250,000? Good work if you can get it.

[greedy player]

next week we'll have a thread about "dog sues adsense for puppy-mate-friend-finder.com adsense banned account after licking mouse clicked a few ads to try and eat his food on the kichen floor"

Woooot can't wait!

on subject: [bravacorp.com...] << ROFLMAO?

[Freedom]

$250,000 for 100 hours? So, she pays her employees $2,500 an hour?

She's obviously a flake with some kind of mental disorder who is trying to steal a page from the KinderStart Publicity Manual.

[sonny]

Strange, the adsense preview tool shows ads.

[Content_ed]

unless your website is a ton of static crap without even SSI to start with which is a different issue altogether.

Hey, I resemble that remark. Next you're going to suggest that Notepad isn't the ideal HTML editor, and IE isn't a good FTP client!

[hunderdown]

Not a publicity stunt. As the eWeek article notes at the end, she didn't announce the suit with a press release--the writer had to dig it up.

This is someone who appears to not understand the most basic aspects of AdSense and its TOS. The suit will be dismissed.

[OptiRex]

Good grief! Obviously the woman cannot read since the first thing she would read on the T&C's page is this:

PLEASE READ VERY CAREFULLY THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND THE FAQ BEFORE REGISTERING FOR THE GOOGLE ADSENSE ONLINE PROGRAM. PARTICIPATION IN THE GOOGLE ADSENSE ONLINE PROGRAM INDICATES THAT YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, PLEASE DO NOT REGISTER FOR OR PARTICIPATE IN THE GOOGLE ADSENSE ONLINE PROGRAM.

Just how clear a statement does she require?

Maybe point 5?

Prohibited Uses. You shall not, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) directly or indirectly generate queries, Referral Events, or impressions of or clicks on any Ad, Link, Search Result, or Referral Button through any automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks,

I reckon she's trying to use reverse psychology by pretending NOT to generate any publicity...it stinks.

[ryanfromaustin]

If she clicked competitors' ads, I would LOVE to see one them sue her for click fraud.

[TheDonster]

Yet another torpedo for content publishers. Wanna bet this one makes the national news by the end of the week?

[farmboy]

I've been expecting to wake up one morning and read that a group of publishers have sued Google for not enforcing policies against the MFA's. When I saw this headline, I thought this was it!

Boy was I surprised. LOL!

FarmBoy

[FrostyMug]

wow, what a ridiculous lawsuit!

[WolfLover]

Frivilous lawsuits like this are a HUGE waste of time and money. How can someone who is supposed to be highly educated be this ignorant?

She is the poster child for booksmart with no common sense. Give me a person with common sense any time!

[greedy player]

This proves my point about anyone with qualifications.

Qualifications are earnt by sitting in a class room and taking time out of your real life world to work towards getting a pass.

It proves nothing of intelligence nor does it even show evidence that they are better than someone with no exam results at all.

[walkman]

"According to her site, Bradley's "illustrative clients" include Kellogg-Brown and Root, Halliburton, The Wall Street Journal, Bear Stearns and Company, and the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Va."

Not for long...if this gets some press.

[greedy player]

i'd hate to lose "The Wall Street Journal" isn't that a well respectable business?