Google Accused of Benefitting From Piracy

Clant writes "Google has been accused of benefiting from certain piracy websites because of the Adsense program, according to reports. Several major media companies have called on Google to properly screen their AdSense partners and stop supporting sites that are benefiting from piracy. 'Legal filings show that Google worked with EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com from 2003 to 2005, generating more than $1.1 million in revenue for the sites through the AdSense program. Google reportedly noticed the amount of traffic and advertising served by the two websites and assigned them an account representative to help optimize their efforts.'"

RTFA sil vous plait

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the defendants were assigned an account manager is not particularly surprising: this happens to many "high traffic sites," ... but does not necessarily mean that the content of a site is closely scrutinized.

McDonald's guilty of supporting street gangs

[Hao Wu]

The restaurant frequently serves people off the street who are linked to all manner of criminal activity.

They knowingly go on serving who ever has an appetite for their food, and the cash ready to pay for it.

No screening, no checking IDs... "Food for profit" is the evil game they play.

Makes legit people mad

[drewzhrodague]

This makes legit people (like me) hopping mad. Imagine that you do what you can to build *useful* applications on the Internet, being sure to avoid porn, spam, and warez methods. Then, Google turns off the ads on your site, when you can barely keep up with the constant bombardment from comment spam. Then, you find out that Google is okay with providing ads for warez groups. How much fun is that?

Re:Guilty by association?

[jayloden]

I got "personal attention" from a Google employee with suggestions on how to optimize my ad revenue too, and my site never made more than a few hundred dollars in a month from adsense (typically much less). My impression was that they hired some data entry workers to scan through adsense customer websites and suggest better ad placements. I somehow doubt they even cared or noticed what the content of the site was, they're just looking to make sure your ads are in the most prevalent and annoying locations. The fact that they had an employee "assigned" to optimize ad placement means absolutely nothing in this instance.