Google Agrees To Pay $11 Million To Owners Of Suspended Adsense Accounts

Google has agreed to create a fund of
11 million dollars as part of a a class
action settlement for terminating or
disabling a publisher’s Adsense
accounts, but not paying out any
balances that the publisher had at
the time.

The class action complaint filed by a

California company named Free
Range Content, Inc. alleged that
Google would shut down an Adsense
account shortly before a payment
was to be made and then deny the
publisher the balance owed on the
account.

2. The AdSense program is
enormously popular. This popularity
translates annually to billions of
dollars payable to AdSense
publishers – Google’s parlance for
website operators that host its ads.
But as the plaintiff and many other
publishers have found, Google often
shuts down AdSense accounts shortly
before a periodic payment is due and
then denies the publisher the
entirety of the expected payment,
notwithstanding all the ads the
publisher already has served to
visitors to its website during the
payment period.
3. This practice has sparked
numerous bitter complaints detailed
at various places on the web. For
example, one self-described AdSense
publisher stated the following: “It’s
common knowledge among SEOs
that AdSense tends to be disabled a
few days before the supposed
payout.
I haven’t lost any big sum –
only $2000 but I know one person
that lost $40,000. It was all legitimate
traffic coming straight from Google
themselves, no click fraud no bought
traffic etc. PS: I was using AdSense
from 2008 to 2013 – over 5 years so
it’s not like only new users got
banned.”1
While the Plaintiffs ultimately feel
they would have won the case, they
also acknowledged in the settlement
agreement that they “recognize that
Google raised defenses as to both
liability and damages, which created
a material risk that Plaintiffs would
not have prevailed.”
Google on the other hand has “has at
all times denied—and continues to
deny—any and all alleged
wrongdoing. Specifically, Google
denies that its conduct concerning
Google AdSense violates any law, and
it is prepared to continue its
vigorous defense, including at
summary judgment and trial.
Even so, taking into account the
uncertainty and risks inherent in
summary judgment and trial, Google
has concluded that continuing to
defend this Action would be
burdensome and expensive.”
With both the plaintiff and Google
recognizing that this case could have
gone either way, they both felt it was
in the best interests to settle rather
than continue what would be an
expensive case.
As part of the settlement agreement
an 11 million dollar fund will be
created, with no more than $5,000
being paid to Class Representatives,
no more than $2,750,000 being paid
to the class action lawyers, and
$116,045 reimbursed to the lawyers
for costs and expenses.
The rest of
the money will be used to pay
Settlement Class Members whose
accounts were terminated or
disabled by Adsense and were not
paid the current balance of their
accounts.
Amount of payment is based on
various criteria
The amount of money that a
claimant will be paid depends on the
payment group they would fall
under, which is based on whether a
notice of dispute was sent in a timely
manner, when they were terminated,
and what Adsense agreement their
account was bound by.
For “Payment
Group 1”, the publisher would
receive 100% of the balance,
“Payment Group 2” would receive
50%, and “Payment Group 3” would
receive 30%.
The minimum amount that can be
claimed is $3.00 and any remaining
distributions will be distributed as a
“cy pres” award, which is proposed
to go to Public Justice Foundation
and Public Counsel.
For those who have had their
Adsense accounts terminated or
disabled by Google and were not
paid the balance, you can visit the

http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com/
site to submit a claim.
Should Google’s actions be
considered criminal?
Some are also concerned about the
heavy handed actions of Google and
their actions having no
consequences.
For example, a user on Hacker News
was baffled that an action like this
would not be considered a criminal
act. Terminating an account for
breaking policy is one thing, but
taking their money is another thing
altogether.
After posting this story, Bad Packets
Report pointed us towards an old
Pastebin post from 2014, which was
supposedly from a Google employee
that stated that these bans were an
attempt by Google to increase
earnings.
Whether or not this post is
true is not known and could be
completely fabricated, but it does
make for an interesting read.