7 ms·

Why I Sued Google (and Won)

222 points by thinkcomp 18y ago

jcapote 18y ago
Great article; I had no idea that you could just go up against whoever without some crazy legal team in small claims court...
- patio11 18y ago
  Small claims court is one of the great levelers, as long as you're literate, calm, and patient. Another one is the art of writing letters on actual paper to people. Because nothing says Serious Business like the magic words Return Receipt Requested. ("I paid the Post Office five dollars extra when I mailed this so that I have admissible proof you got the letter when I sue you for ignoring its contents.") I used the (well-founded) threat of it to resolve some difficulties after some creditors got the mistaken impression that I owed them money. One letter to get them to stop calling me, one more letter to remind them that the three calls after the first letter mean they owe me $3,000 under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the meter is still running if they want to call me again. My only regret is that I didn't have enough days off that year to march down the court and actually sue them. I think its... salutary to remind debt collection agencies that the legal system works both ways. For one, if more people did it I'd get less people thinking I owe them money because I share the same first initial, last name, and (former) zipcode as someone who might.
- chris11 18y ago
  There are a lot of stories about people suing companies in small claims court on the consumerist. A lot of companies don't want to fly someone out there to fight a thousand dollar law suit. You can even try for damages. There's one story on there about a guy who sued Washington Mutual for $2058 over a $58 overdraft fee. Consumerist.com stories: http://consumerist.com/tag/small%20claims%20court/ http://consumerist.com/tag/small%20claims%20court/ Consumerist.com How To Guide: http://consumerist.com/5100451/how-to-file-a-lawsuit http://consumerist.com/5100451/how-to-file-a-lawsuit
- jimbokun 18y ago
  Is there a possible startup business that helps people go to small claims court and win? A "How to" FAQ of course is useful, but I wonder if there is way to get a business model behind it.
  - nostrademons 18y ago
    Google is pretty good at it: http://www.google.com/search?q=small+claims+court http://www.google.com/search?q=small+claims+court Heck, they've even got a business model around it: look at how many Adwords results there are!
    - jimbokun 18y ago
      And the top placed AdSense ad is giving a go of it, too, I see. :) http://www.civiltree.com http://www.civiltree.com
blhack 18y ago
Ummmm...it sounds like the guy totally violated google's terms of service. He was hosting ads on a domain-squatting site that had no content. The advertisers were refunded their money, and the guy's account was closed down. As somebody that buys ads from google, I would be pretty pissed off if I found out that i was paying $1 a click for my ads to be on a parked domain...which is why they have their terms set up the way they are. Yeah, it sounds like the appeals process sucks, and that they didn't give him a real reason, but "you are a leeching douche-bag cancer to the DNS" should be a pretty good hint.
- petercooper 18y ago
  As somebody that buys ads from google, I would be pretty pissed off if I found out that i was paying $1 a click for my ads to be on a parked domain...which is why they have their terms set up the way they are. But they've now rolled out Adsense for Domains anyway.. Besides, surely it's the context that matters more than the content of the page? If you sell diapers for monkeys (let's say!) and your ad appears on a parked domain called monkeydiapers.com and someone clicks on it, that visitor is probably more likely to be a buyer than someone who clicks on the same ad on a comedy Web site, right?
  - hardik 18y ago
    Not logged into my Adwords account since sometime but surely it would be optional to advertisers whether they want to display ads on parked domains, isn't it? I agree with your example regarding propensity of the person being a buyer but the advertiser may not want to show his site on a parked domain for, say, branding purposes.
    - petercooper 18y ago
      I'm not sure. The options I get are: Google Search Search Partners The Content Network and then by "platform" .. Desktop vs iPhone + smart devices. You can set content network to targeted though, but I don't see any way of totally opting out of parked pages. I agree with you, however, that this is not necessarily what advertisers want, although ultimately I think it could work out if Google maintains quality.
tlrobinson 18y ago
This is the same guy who claims Facebook was his idea, and tried to get Facebook's trademark revoked: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/17/greenspan_harvard_faceboog_trademark_battle/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/17/greenspan_harvard_fa...
- tjogin 18y ago
  - I have a super unique idea that nobody has thought of before: an online community where you can connect with friends, send messages and stuff. Keep a lid on it though, I don't want this never-thought-of-before idea to get out!!! (Ideas are worthless. Execution is all that matters.)
  - jibiki 18y ago
    I've never understood all the AG hate on this site. I can see how you could pity the guy, or dismiss him out of hand, but a lot of people on this site seem to hold genuine malice towards him. It's bizzare.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - fallentimes 18y ago
      >I can see how you could pity the guy, or dismiss him out of hand I think more people would feel that way if legal action wasn't involved. Suits & lawsuits tend to leave a bad taste in people's mouths...
    - jpwagner 18y ago
      What's really strange is that all this hate gets so much positive karma. Anytime I post something like these guys, I get blasted into the negative. I'd be curious to know the general thought on how often it's appropriate to get yourself into these types of legal issues. (AG seems to have a pretty loose trigger finger when it comes to serving papers.)
    - Herring 18y ago
tertius 18y ago
I'm all for fairness but this guy was technically at fault and the paralegal should really have known the ins and outs better than he/she did. Another point, I don't want to send any extra traffic to the huffpost by "liking" this article.
- kailashbadu 18y ago
  What’s the premise of your assertion that Google had a better case than this guy did?
  - tertius 18y ago
    In terms of his wrongdoing it was an open and shut case. In terms of their information given for what he probably knew was against their TOS, they were in the wrong. I don't deny that. My problem comes in when he was awarded the money that was 'gained' by actions that was against their TOS. That just doesn't make any sense.
- greyman 18y ago
  Google was also at fault, because they had to provide a reason for disabling his account. I think it was correct to sue them at least for discouraging such a practice in the future. He was their customer, it is too much to ask for at least a one sentence response from human?
  - trevelyan 18y ago
    He should have put some content up on the domain before putting the advertisements up. If you have this sort of traffic, why not monetize it properly in a way that doesn't violate the terms of service? Expecting Google to be as responsive as his own business simply because he is the boss is unrealistic. Nice to see Google giving some young legal interns experience this way. They probably save considerably over having more experienced counsel handle it.
    - kailashbadu 18y ago
coolestuk 18y ago
I've never used the small claims court to sue large companies. But in genuine disputes my partner and I have used it to sue small businesses where we have been aggrieved. In every single case we've won, even when the disputes were against lawyers for their fees. I know so many people who have been badly treated (e.g. landlords keeping entire deposits claiming because some minor damage happened during their tenancy). Yet none of my friends ever carry through and seek legal justice. I just don't understand their fear of the very simple small claims procedure.
- shimon 18y ago
  I know it varies by state, but where I live (MA) the small claims limit is $2000. When you take into consideration the amount of time you're sinking into the case, and the risk that you might not win, there is only a small range of damages that are likely worth pursuing in small claims court. If you're in a line of work where you routinely sign contracts, you probably have clearer-cut cases than the average landlord-tenant situation. I think most people hardly understand most contracts they sign, and doubt they understand the range of options offered by the legal system. So two things would help: raising the small-claims limit (I think $8k or so would make sense) and educating people about the option. Follow-up question: do shows like People's Court serve or hinder the mission of educating people about small claims court?
- mhb 18y ago
  Getting a judgment is one thing. Getting the money from the person you sue is not always easy even if you have a judgment.
TweedHeads 18y ago
Propaganda attack on google. Everybody sue them! We can't compete with them in terms of innovation and services so we better sue them into oblivion by proxy. Nice try...
Fuca 18y ago
I am not saying Google its a bad company, but certainly its not the white knight everybody believes.
- spoiledtechie 18y ago
  Im starting to believe that.
- blhack 18y ago
  are you kidding? They're protecting the people that buy ads from them, people like me, people with no advertising budget that are just trying to get a few people to check out their stupid blog (http://www.gibsonandlily.com http://www.gibsonandlily.com). Those ads cost something like $1 a click (or more). If I found out that my tiny tiny budget was going to ads on some stupid domain parking website, I would be LIVID. Yeah, google terminated his account. They did it to protect people like me, and they are the reason the reason that people like me use them. I'm sorry, but domain parking/squatting/tasting/leeching/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is an instant failure in my book.
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    While I agree with most of your sentiments, I think Google could have at least provided an explanation.
  - spc476 18y ago
    If your ad appears on a domain parking site and no one clicks it, it doesn't cost you anything, right? Only when someone clicks the link, right? So if you are advertising your website and someone clicks an advertisement, regardless of where it appeared, that's a problem? I could see it being a problem if you paid per impression, but not for clicks, unless the clicks from a domain parking website have a lower "conversion" factor than other types of domains.
dejb 18y ago
This sort of thing will be the downfall of google. The lack of communication with smaller (1-10K/mth) business partners is a big problem. When you do a certain level of business with them you'd expect to be able to talk to somebody on the phone much less get a response to an email. Communication is worth at least 10c CPM.
nostrademons 18y ago
How much more money could he have made had he put all the time he spent complaining about Google, suing them, and then writing about it into improving his product? Or coming up with something that's at least not totally lame? At decent programmer salaries, $761 is like 2 days of work. Probably more if you're self employed and have a decent business. There's a reason why startups do their best not to get involved in lawsuits...
- kailashbadu 18y ago
  You horribly misread the article if you think he did this to get his $761 back.
  - dbul 18y ago
    Agreed. You don't take Google to small claims court to win $761, you take them to small claims court and win so that you can write about it in the Huffington Post and have a bunch of nerds react to it.
gsmaverick 18y ago
The Google Adsense TOS clearly states they can terminate accounts for any reason. And yes that includes having brown hair. You have no right to any of the money. They DON'T owe you ANYTHING! I don't understand why people can't realize this!
- lutorm 18y ago
  You can't disable constitutional rights by TOS.
  - mhb 18y ago
    And that will matter when Google becomes part of the US government.
    - jess 18y ago
      or perhaps when it starts doing business in the USA... oh, wait.
    - mlinsey 18y ago
      lutorm should have said "federal and state non-discrimination laws", not "constitutional rights", but the result is the same. This is the same reason private business in the South are no longer allowed to be Whites-only.
      - lutorm 18y ago
        my bad.
      - kragen 18y ago
        I do not know of any federal or state US laws against discriminating by hair color.
        mlinsey 18y ago
        I don't know of any that explicitly mention hair color, but there are broader laws where hair color would probably fit in. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights act prohibits discrimination on traits "associated" with certain racial or ethnic groups.
iamelgringo 18y ago
As much as I like Google, their customer service sucks when you're trying to get in touch with someone. What other customer facing company could get away with something like that? If it was a bank, I'd be speaking to customer service managers. If it was a store, I'd be able to speak with a manager and try to get the issue resolved, or at least be told why my account was canceled. Whether or not he violated his terms of service or not, doesn't mean that they had a right to swallow his $700.
sutro 18y ago
Hey thinkcomp, are you going to sue E*Trade too? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504950 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504950
shimi 18y ago
I don't care who the guy is. A contract termination needs to come with a reason, a termination without reason is bullying. 700$ is enough money to make an effort and go to court to settle the sidpute. What I find it hard to believe is that Google couldn't come up with a reason, I just can't believe they are so incompetent!! Something just doesn't add up...
frig 18y ago
There's a problem with being litigious: it closes doors for you, and you'll probably never even know what doors they were...if someone does their due diligence, sees you're litigious, and decides not to contact you, it's quite unlikely they'll contact you to let you know they decided not to contact you.
kragen 18y ago
Can someone explain to me how domain squatters add more value to the world than beggars? (Leaving aside that beggars usually have an excuse for not being able to find productive work.)
jfornear 18y ago
I had my Google AdSense account terminated a few years ago, too. I emailed Google asking why and never heard anything back. I remember being frustrated about it since I wasn't doing anything that would have been considered sketchy. I should've sued and become internet famous... ugh.

222 points by thinkcomp 18y ago

Great article; I had no idea that you could just go up against whoever without some crazy legal team in small claims court...

patio11 18y ago
Small claims court is one of the great levelers, as long as you're literate, calm, and patient. Another one is the art of writing letters on actual paper to people. Because nothing says Serious Business like the magic words Return Receipt Requested. ("I paid the Post Office five dollars extra when I mailed this so that I have admissible proof you got the letter when I sue you for ignoring its contents.") I used the (well-founded) threat of it to resolve some difficulties after some creditors got the mistaken impression that I owed them money. One letter to get them to stop calling me, one more letter to remind them that the three calls after the first letter mean they owe me $3,000 under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the meter is still running if they want to call me again. My only regret is that I didn't have enough days off that year to march down the court and actually sue them. I think its... salutary to remind debt collection agencies that the legal system works both ways. For one, if more people did it I'd get less people thinking I owe them money because I share the same first initial, last name, and (former) zipcode as someone who might.
chris11 18y ago
There are a lot of stories about people suing companies in small claims court on the consumerist. A lot of companies don't want to fly someone out there to fight a thousand dollar law suit. You can even try for damages. There's one story on there about a guy who sued Washington Mutual for $2058 over a $58 overdraft fee. Consumerist.com stories: http://consumerist.com/tag/small%20claims%20court/ http://consumerist.com/tag/small%20claims%20court/ Consumerist.com How To Guide: http://consumerist.com/5100451/how-to-file-a-lawsuit http://consumerist.com/5100451/how-to-file-a-lawsuit
jimbokun 18y ago
Is there a possible startup business that helps people go to small claims court and win? A "How to" FAQ of course is useful, but I wonder if there is way to get a business model behind it.
- nostrademons 18y ago
  Google is pretty good at it: http://www.google.com/search?q=small+claims+court http://www.google.com/search?q=small+claims+court Heck, they've even got a business model around it: look at how many Adwords results there are!
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    And the top placed AdSense ad is giving a go of it, too, I see. :) http://www.civiltree.com http://www.civiltree.com

blhack 18y ago

Ummmm...it sounds like the guy totally violated google's terms of service. He was hosting ads on a domain-squatting site that had no content. The advertisers were refunded their money, and the guy's account was closed down. As somebody that buys ads from google, I would be pretty pissed off if I found out that i was paying $1 a click for my ads to be on a parked domain...which is why they have their terms set up the way they are. Yeah, it sounds like the appeals process sucks, and that they didn't give him a real reason, but "you are a leeching douche-bag cancer to the DNS" should be a pretty good hint.

petercooper 18y ago
As somebody that buys ads from google, I would be pretty pissed off if I found out that i was paying $1 a click for my ads to be on a parked domain...which is why they have their terms set up the way they are. But they've now rolled out Adsense for Domains anyway.. Besides, surely it's the context that matters more than the content of the page? If you sell diapers for monkeys (let's say!) and your ad appears on a parked domain called monkeydiapers.com and someone clicks on it, that visitor is probably more likely to be a buyer than someone who clicks on the same ad on a comedy Web site, right?
- hardik 18y ago
  Not logged into my Adwords account since sometime but surely it would be optional to advertisers whether they want to display ads on parked domains, isn't it? I agree with your example regarding propensity of the person being a buyer but the advertiser may not want to show his site on a parked domain for, say, branding purposes.
  - petercooper 18y ago
    I'm not sure. The options I get are: Google Search Search Partners The Content Network and then by "platform" .. Desktop vs iPhone + smart devices. You can set content network to targeted though, but I don't see any way of totally opting out of parked pages. I agree with you, however, that this is not necessarily what advertisers want, although ultimately I think it could work out if Google maintains quality.

tlrobinson 18y ago

This is the same guy who claims Facebook was his idea, and tried to get Facebook's trademark revoked: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/17/greenspan_harvard_faceboog_trademark_battle/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/17/greenspan_harvard_fa...

tjogin 18y ago
- I have a super unique idea that nobody has thought of before: an online community where you can connect with friends, send messages and stuff. Keep a lid on it though, I don't want this never-thought-of-before idea to get out!!! (Ideas are worthless. Execution is all that matters.)
- jibiki 18y ago
  I've never understood all the AG hate on this site. I can see how you could pity the guy, or dismiss him out of hand, but a lot of people on this site seem to hold genuine malice towards him. It's bizzare.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    >I can see how you could pity the guy, or dismiss him out of hand I think more people would feel that way if legal action wasn't involved. Suits & lawsuits tend to leave a bad taste in people's mouths...
  - jpwagner 18y ago
    What's really strange is that all this hate gets so much positive karma. Anytime I post something like these guys, I get blasted into the negative. I'd be curious to know the general thought on how often it's appropriate to get yourself into these types of legal issues. (AG seems to have a pretty loose trigger finger when it comes to serving papers.)
  - Herring 18y ago

tertius 18y ago

I'm all for fairness but this guy was technically at fault and the paralegal should really have known the ins and outs better than he/she did. Another point, I don't want to send any extra traffic to the huffpost by "liking" this article.

kailashbadu 18y ago
What’s the premise of your assertion that Google had a better case than this guy did?
- tertius 18y ago
  In terms of his wrongdoing it was an open and shut case. In terms of their information given for what he probably knew was against their TOS, they were in the wrong. I don't deny that. My problem comes in when he was awarded the money that was 'gained' by actions that was against their TOS. That just doesn't make any sense.
greyman 18y ago
Google was also at fault, because they had to provide a reason for disabling his account. I think it was correct to sue them at least for discouraging such a practice in the future. He was their customer, it is too much to ask for at least a one sentence response from human?
- trevelyan 18y ago
  He should have put some content up on the domain before putting the advertisements up. If you have this sort of traffic, why not monetize it properly in a way that doesn't violate the terms of service? Expecting Google to be as responsive as his own business simply because he is the boss is unrealistic. Nice to see Google giving some young legal interns experience this way. They probably save considerably over having more experienced counsel handle it.
  - kailashbadu 18y ago

coolestuk 18y ago

I've never used the small claims court to sue large companies. But in genuine disputes my partner and I have used it to sue small businesses where we have been aggrieved. In every single case we've won, even when the disputes were against lawyers for their fees. I know so many people who have been badly treated (e.g. landlords keeping entire deposits claiming because some minor damage happened during their tenancy). Yet none of my friends ever carry through and seek legal justice. I just don't understand their fear of the very simple small claims procedure.

shimon 18y ago
I know it varies by state, but where I live (MA) the small claims limit is $2000. When you take into consideration the amount of time you're sinking into the case, and the risk that you might not win, there is only a small range of damages that are likely worth pursuing in small claims court. If you're in a line of work where you routinely sign contracts, you probably have clearer-cut cases than the average landlord-tenant situation. I think most people hardly understand most contracts they sign, and doubt they understand the range of options offered by the legal system. So two things would help: raising the small-claims limit (I think $8k or so would make sense) and educating people about the option. Follow-up question: do shows like People's Court serve or hinder the mission of educating people about small claims court?
mhb 18y ago
Getting a judgment is one thing. Getting the money from the person you sue is not always easy even if you have a judgment.

TweedHeads 18y ago

Propaganda attack on google. Everybody sue them! We can't compete with them in terms of innovation and services so we better sue them into oblivion by proxy. Nice try...

Fuca 18y ago

I am not saying Google its a bad company, but certainly its not the white knight everybody believes.

spoiledtechie 18y ago
Im starting to believe that.
blhack 18y ago
are you kidding? They're protecting the people that buy ads from them, people like me, people with no advertising budget that are just trying to get a few people to check out their stupid blog (http://www.gibsonandlily.com http://www.gibsonandlily.com). Those ads cost something like $1 a click (or more). If I found out that my tiny tiny budget was going to ads on some stupid domain parking website, I would be LIVID. Yeah, google terminated his account. They did it to protect people like me, and they are the reason the reason that people like me use them. I'm sorry, but domain parking/squatting/tasting/leeching/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is an instant failure in my book.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  While I agree with most of your sentiments, I think Google could have at least provided an explanation.
- spc476 18y ago
  If your ad appears on a domain parking site and no one clicks it, it doesn't cost you anything, right? Only when someone clicks the link, right? So if you are advertising your website and someone clicks an advertisement, regardless of where it appeared, that's a problem? I could see it being a problem if you paid per impression, but not for clicks, unless the clicks from a domain parking website have a lower "conversion" factor than other types of domains.

dejb 18y ago

This sort of thing will be the downfall of google. The lack of communication with smaller (1-10K/mth) business partners is a big problem. When you do a certain level of business with them you'd expect to be able to talk to somebody on the phone much less get a response to an email. Communication is worth at least 10c CPM.

nostrademons 18y ago

How much more money could he have made had he put all the time he spent complaining about Google, suing them, and then writing about it into improving his product? Or coming up with something that's at least not totally lame? At decent programmer salaries, $761 is like 2 days of work. Probably more if you're self employed and have a decent business. There's a reason why startups do their best not to get involved in lawsuits...

kailashbadu 18y ago
You horribly misread the article if you think he did this to get his $761 back.
- dbul 18y ago
  Agreed. You don't take Google to small claims court to win $761, you take them to small claims court and win so that you can write about it in the Huffington Post and have a bunch of nerds react to it.

gsmaverick 18y ago

The Google Adsense TOS clearly states they can terminate accounts for any reason. And yes that includes having brown hair. You have no right to any of the money. They DON'T owe you ANYTHING! I don't understand why people can't realize this!

lutorm 18y ago
You can't disable constitutional rights by TOS.
- mhb 18y ago
  And that will matter when Google becomes part of the US government.
  - jess 18y ago
    or perhaps when it starts doing business in the USA... oh, wait.
  - mlinsey 18y ago
    lutorm should have said "federal and state non-discrimination laws", not "constitutional rights", but the result is the same. This is the same reason private business in the South are no longer allowed to be Whites-only.
    - lutorm 18y ago
      my bad.
    - kragen 18y ago
      I do not know of any federal or state US laws against discriminating by hair color.
      - mlinsey 18y ago
        I don't know of any that explicitly mention hair color, but there are broader laws where hair color would probably fit in. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights act prohibits discrimination on traits "associated" with certain racial or ethnic groups.

iamelgringo 18y ago

As much as I like Google, their customer service sucks when you're trying to get in touch with someone. What other customer facing company could get away with something like that? If it was a bank, I'd be speaking to customer service managers. If it was a store, I'd be able to speak with a manager and try to get the issue resolved, or at least be told why my account was canceled. Whether or not he violated his terms of service or not, doesn't mean that they had a right to swallow his $700.

sutro 18y ago

Hey thinkcomp, are you going to sue E*Trade too? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504950 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504950

shimi 18y ago

I don't care who the guy is. A contract termination needs to come with a reason, a termination without reason is bullying. 700$ is enough money to make an effort and go to court to settle the sidpute. What I find it hard to believe is that Google couldn't come up with a reason, I just can't believe they are so incompetent!! Something just doesn't add up...

frig 18y ago

There's a problem with being litigious: it closes doors for you, and you'll probably never even know what doors they were...if someone does their due diligence, sees you're litigious, and decides not to contact you, it's quite unlikely they'll contact you to let you know they decided not to contact you.

kragen 18y ago

Can someone explain to me how domain squatters add more value to the world than beggars? (Leaving aside that beggars usually have an excuse for not being able to find productive work.)

jfornear 18y ago

I had my Google AdSense account terminated a few years ago, too. I emailed Google asking why and never heard anything back. I remember being frustrated about it since I wasn't doing anything that would have been considered sketchy. I should've sued and become internet famous... ugh.