Suing Google For Your Own Stupidity

It's an easy way to earn a quarter of a million dollars...if you can actually pull it off. At least that seems to be the thinking of D.C. resident Theresa B. Bradley who filed suit against Google earlier this month for "fraud and misrepresentation, including misrepresentation in commercial advertising, and of "willfull, wanton, fraudulent and malicious" conduct regarding its AdSense product." Oh yeah, she also threw in "misrepresentation in interstate commerce" for good measure.

So what makes this lawsuit worth writing about? Well, mostly the sheer stupidity of it all. You see there are several reasons that Ms. Bradley is suing Google and all of them...well...they're kind of amusing.

1.) She claims her staff spent 100 hours placing and reviewing the AdSense code.
2.) She asked Google to remove certain ads from her site.
3.) Google removed AdSense from her web site.

What's that? You don't think those three points are amusing? Well, let's break it down a little further...

First let's look at complain #1...the fact that her staff spent 100 hours placing and reviewing the code on her site. The site in question, BRAVA Corp. is not only the oddest mish-mash of services and information that I've ever seen, it also appears to consist of about 25-30 pages. Now, I'm not sure what her programmers were doing when they put the code in place, but anyone that has EVER implemented AdSense can tell you that it does not take 100 hours to place it on 25-30 pages. In fact, it doesn't take 10 hours to place it on 25-30 pages. So, something a little fishy is going on there.

Next let's consider point #2...the request to remove certain ads from her site. There's certainly nothing wrong with this request. Google AdSense is actually setup to allow you to block competitors from placing ads on your site. The problem is that Ms. Bradley decided to click on those ads in order to find out if the advertiser was selling a competing product. With that in mind, I'll simply quote the following from the Google AdSense TOS...

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.

and...

You acknowledge that any attempted participation or violation of any of the foregoing is a material breach of this Agreement and that we may pursue any and all applicable legal and equitable remedies against You, including an immediate suspension of Your account or termination of this Agreement, and the pursuit of all available civil or criminal remedies.

You got that? It's very simple. Don't click on your own ads or Google reserves the right to end their affiliation with you.

That brings us to point #3. Yes, Google AdSense ended their advertising agreement with her and removed the ads from her site. So what? They did this because she not only clicked on the ads on her site, she actually ADMITTED that she clicked on the ads. She's acknowledged that she willfully violated the terms of service that she agreed to when she signed up for the program, yet now she wants to sue for far more money than her site ever would have generated from the AdSense program.

Absolutely ludicrous.

More on the story (and apparently ongoing updates) can be found at eWeek.