Google China Faces a Backyard Fire, As Hardcore Fans Go to Court Against Each Other

On May 22, Xiaolong, a webmaster from Shanghai, filed a lawsuit against Google Inc., accusing Google AdSense's judgment and handling of invalid clicks (fraud clicks) of seriously infringing on the rights of publishers. Subsequently, reporters confirmed this news with the First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai.

Google AdSense is an advertising program provided by Google for website owners and is also an important source of revenue for Google globally. Webmasters earn part of the advertising commission by placing ads provided by Google on their own sites. Google AdSense is one of the main choices for Chinese individual webmasters and even some portal sites to place advertisements, occupying a considerable share in China's online advertising market.

The plaintiff, Xiaolong, is the moderator of the Google AdSense section of the "Publisher Forum." He has been involved in the Simplified Chinese localization of Google products, so he has a deep understanding of Google AdSense. He is also one of the earlier advertisers in mainland China to participate in the Google AdSense program, being a very active publisher, supporter, and promoter of Google AdSense.

Xiaolong initiated the lawsuit regarding invalid clicks because he found that Google AdSense's judgment and handling of invalid clicks have seriously deviated from the normal range, directly affecting the advertising income of many publishers. Some publisher accounts have been suspended due to invalid clicks; some publishers' incomes have been adjusted due to invalid clicks; some publishers' average ad prices are getting lower because many clicks are considered invalid and filtered out.

There is no explanation for these judgments of invalid clicks. The reason given is that Google's algorithm is proprietary and cannot be provided. This is the main reason for this lawsuit.