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12-Year-Old Boy Gets $100K Bill From Google After Confusing Adwords With Adsense (theregister.co.uk) 140

Posted by BeauHD from the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other dept.
The names Google gives to its services can be a bit confusing at times, especially since there are so many of them. For example, Adwords and Adsense look and sound very similar but they deal with two different transaction types. While Adwords deals with spending money, Adsense deals with earning money. A 12-year-old boy in Spain managed to confused the two services and ended up with a bill of 100,000 euros ($111,490). The Register reports: Jose Javier, 12, had signed up for Google's Adwords program in order to make money from advertisements placed alongside YouTube videos of his band, the Torrevieja llamada Los Salerosos -- en ingles, the Torrevieja Fun Guys -- named after the Alicante town in which he lives. Unfortunately, for the young musician, Google's AdWords program is for those wishing to advertise at cost, rather than run advertisements for profit. According to a report from Spanish daily El Pais, Jose and a friend planned to buy instruments, play music, get rich and buy a mansion by subscribing to the service. By early September the account was being billed by Google, receiving charges which reportedly rose quickly from an initial 15 euros ($16.72) to 19,700 euros ($21,960.57) at a time until the amount owed hit six figures. Google's statement noted that AdWords has age restrictions in place and encouraged families to familiarize itself with its Safety Center, but the boy's mother complained to El Pais that it was too easy for her son to make the purchases from Google, requiring him only to provide his savings account details, which he did in mid-August. Thankfully, Google was kind enough to cancel the outstanding balance on its Adwords service.
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12-Year-Old Boy Gets $100K Bill From Google After Confusing Adwords With Adsense More

12-Year-Old Boy Gets $100K Bill From Google After Confusing Adwords With Adsense

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  • Contracts with minors (Score:5, Informative)

    by SeattleLawGuy ( 4561077 ) on Thursday October 06, 2016 @08:57PM (#53028905)

    In the United States, contracts with underage individuals are usually not enforceable unless ratified after the minor reaches adulthood or approved by a court. I am guessing there is something similar in Spain, although the ages may vary.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Which is why it's brilliant.

      1. Sign contract you can not legally be held accountable to for "free" advertising.
      2. Get in the news for bewildering amount you owe, have band's name mentioned.
      3. Sign up for Adsense.
      4. Profit from combination of original advertising plus new Streisand effect.

      In the United States, contracts with underage individuals are usually not enforceable unless ratified after the minor reaches adulthood or approved by a court. I am guessing there is something similar in Spain, although the ages may vary.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by spudnic ( 32107 )

        That was my exact plan for the Columbia House Record Club. That didn't work out well.

    • Am I the only one who thought that the $100,000 bill was this bill [wikia.com] and that the boy had earned a bug hunting/spell-checking bounty from Google for having caught the mistake?

      • While most of us expect commenters not to read TFA, most of us expect that they read at least a couple sentences of the summary.

        • Who reads anymore? Its so passé.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

            Who reads anymore? Its so passé.

            Who spells anymore? It's so passé.

            • Not to nitpick or anything, but according to OED "its, adj. and pron." A.b. "Modifying a verbal noun, gerund, or gerundival clause, forming an embedded phrase corresponding to a clause consisting of it and a main verb." its spelled its.

              • Re: Why yes, you are (Score:1, Informative)

                by Anonymous Coward

                And if you really understood the OED entry you quoted, you'd realise that it shows that "it's" is not correct in your sentence.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

                According to Usage (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/its-or-it-s):
                The word it’s is always short for ‘it is’ (as in it's raining), or in informal speech, for ‘it has’ (as in it's got six legs).
                The word its means ‘belonging to it’ (as in hold its head still while I jump on its back). It is a possessive pronoun like his.
                A little sign like ’ can make a lot of difference, you know.
                But English is not my first language so maybe I'm wrong.
                Anyway, let's get back

                • I get that the possessive sense is always its but OED says preceding a gerund or noun-verb that "its" is also correct. In the case of passé which is an adjective I'm not sure. OED doesn't specifically list the contraction anywhere although perhaps they take it as implied.

                  Under the "it" entry there are numerous examples dating back to the 17th century of the contraction being used. It's also interesting to note that that "tis (or 'twas) would have been used. So I will correct it:

                  'Tis passé.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

                    Ah, much better now. thank you. My 'grammer' nazi sense is satisfied.

                  • OED says preceding a gerund or noun-verb that "its" is also correct.

                    Its failing was a tragedy, i.e. the failing belonged to it. Correct but it sounds a bit archaic to me.

                    In the case of passé which is an adjective I'm not sure.

                    That's not the same. I'm sure and you're wrong.

                  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                    by tburkhol ( 121842 )

                    I get that the possessive sense is always its but OED says preceding a gerund or noun-verb that "its" is also correct. In the case of passé which is an adjective I'm not sure

                    Your OED passage says that the phrase, "its going," is ok, much like, "his going." "Its [gerund]" can be confusing, because it is (audibly) indistinguishable to mean "It is going" or the going of it, but it should be clear from context.

                    You would never say, "His passe," nor should you use "its passe."

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by s.petry ( 762400 )

                While there are no other exceptions I can think of, the possessive form of "it" does not have the same rules. "It Is" is "it's", while the possessive form removes the quote. E.G. "The cat chased its own tail." Is a correct statement, where "The cat chased it's own tail." would expand to "The cat chased it is own tail." and would not be correct.

                I believe this same odd rule exists in UK English as well as American English as I have seen it enough.

                • Another way to look at it is: Any place where 'tis (or 'twas) would be suitable would also be suitable for it's. I think we should switch to 'tis from now on.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        Am I the only one who thought that the $100,000 bill was...

        So what word do you folks use for such a bill? A check? Invoice?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cdrudge ( 68377 )

          Invoice would be good. Check would have the same issue as bill. Bill also works if it were say a utility bill or a repair bill. It's ambiguous in the context used because a bill also refers to a note or a piece of paper currency, as in a dollar bill. Since a $100,000 banknote does exist, although never used for public transactions, saying he received a $100,000 note is unclear what exactly he received...was he suddenly a rich 12 year old? Or suddenly serious in debt?

          It could have also been rephrased such a

    • It's very similar, actually, a contract with a minor is pretty much void if a parent shakes his head. It's actually a bit worse like this, the fact that the minor could get into a contract with you without his parents' consent is already something that could get you into hot water.

      That's probably why Google was so eager to put a lid on it before someone took a closer look.

  • Maybe Google should name it common sense (Score:5, Funny)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday October 06, 2016 @09:10PM (#53028967)
    So that people without it wont bother trying to use the service.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That would exclude 99.9% of the population.

      Welcome to the 0.1%. Here's your membership card.

    • An autopilot on a boat or plane requires constant human supervision to make sure it doesn't kill you. So Tesla named their semi-autonomous driving feature 'Autopilot' because that tells the story, right? Nope. People are reading or sitting in the passenger seat while their car drives merrily down the highway.

      You could name a big red button the "Thiswillkillyou button" and people would still press it to see what it did.

      • You could name a big red button the "Thiswillkillyou button" and people would still press it to see what it did.

        I think that says more about human curiosity than it does about human common sense.

        The common sense part would be to press the button with a 10' pole...

  • So, Google ads don't work? (Score:5, Funny)

    by BoogieChile ( 517082 ) on Thursday October 06, 2016 @09:32PM (#53029047)

    After all that advertising, they still hadn't sold enough to pay the bill?

    Sounds like Google ads don't really work all that well.

    • You're assuming they had a product. They didn't. There was nothing to sell except videos which weren't generating any revenue for some extremely obvious reasons.

  • that google sold him $100k worth of advertising before collecting any money (there couldn't have been much in his savings account). And they didn't bother to verify much. It tells me they're having trouble moving ad space....

    • You only get charged when your ad gets placed. So if anything, it was too easy to place his ads. If Google had to collect money every time someone spends $1000, then they'd have to collect too often.

      • In the US, at least, they start auto-charging upon reaching a $50 balance, and then bump it up to progressively larger amounts if you spend more than that regularly.

    • that google sold him $100k worth of advertising before collecting any money (there couldn't have been much in his savings account). And they didn't bother to verify much. It tells me they're having trouble moving ad space....

      Well apparently they billed in him €17 the first month, which seems about right. I am more thinking the rest is some kind of scam.

  • ... because a contract with a minor is legally unenforceable.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Therefore, they were "kind" in the same sense that a mugger surrounded by a SWAT team is "kind enough" to drop the gun.

  • Did Adwords change? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The last time I used Adwords, it was necessary to pay a sum of money in advance. Once that sum was used up, the ad would automatically stop running. When did Google change from prepay to billing after the ads have already run?

  • How is that possible? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Friday October 07, 2016 @01:22AM (#53029739)
    I used Adwords a few years ago, as a kind of test. At the time, I set a limit of $100, thus depending on how many people click the ad, the limit is reached more or less quickly. But in any case, $100 was the maximum I had to pay.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I used Adwords a few years ago, as a kind of test. At the time, I set a limit of $100, thus depending on how many people click the ad, the limit is reached more or less quickly. But in any case, $100 was the maximum I had to pay.

      If you haven't realized you're spending money, you're not likely to set a limit of how much money. It does show that Google will let you rack up a huge bill without credit checks though, but I guess they make more money keeping the barrier low and letting their collections/fraud department deal with those who don't pay up.

      • AFAIR the limit was mandatory, at least at the time. And you had to allocate a sum of money that would be spent by Adwords. Either that changed, or the kid did something else..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      I guess the kid ticked the box for "unlimited income".

  • Adwords billing thresholds are well below 100K (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07, 2016 @02:46AM (#53029869)

    Something is fishy about this story. Google Adwords in Spain uses an Automatic Payment system which requires a credit card and which demands payments when the new account reaches a charge of 50 Euros. Google Adwords stops all account advertising if the bill is not paid immediately. The "billing threshold" increases over time as payments are made but typically for most accounts the "billing threshold" will reach the point where a payment is demanded for every 500 Euros of account activity or every 30 days whichever comes first. The Google Adwords payment system is set up to avoid ever getting into the situation described in the article about this boy. Those much rarer accounts which have pay-per-click advertisements that cost well above this billing threshold have safeguards in place to ensure that payments are going to be made before Adwords allows the account to engage in placing those ads. This article smells not only fishy but also tastes like baloney.

  • In my country google would have to cover it themselfs. 12 year old here cant make legally binding contracts...

  • Come on guys. There was no confusion. Every time you sign up for a service they ALWAYS tell you what the terms are. This isn't Google's first business after all. They have a whole team that does nothing but figure out legal stuff. In order to participate you have to agree to a bunch of terms. One of which of course would have barred him - his age.

    So no, there was no confusion. He didn't read the contract. Just like a lot of slashdot people (ok, just about all of us) that never bother to RTFA.

    • This isn't Google's first business after all.

      I mean, it actually is. Now, it's not a new business, but selling ads is their first and primary revenue stream.

  • This story seems a little bit weird. First of all, Google has a policy of suing the people and companies that don't pay their balances. I know this because we received a notice from them after we forgot to pay one of the bills after we advertised our website [redactiaseo.ro] through their services. I'm not sure if this policy applies all over Europe but since I live in the EU, I can conclude that Spain must be included. Therefore, it seems unlikely to me that Google would just let one of their advertisers (regardless of th

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