Cashing Out: Week of March 1st -7th, 2009 in Online Marketing News

Frank Moves to Repeal U.S. Online Gambling Ban

Gambling can be a resource during tough economic times; at least Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank seems to think so. Frank announced he would be pushing legislation in the House to repeal the U.S. ban on online gambling. The repeal of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act would bring in an estimated $52 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.

Ebay Puts New Affiliate Applications on Hold

Eager to become an Ebay affiliate? Well you are out of luck this week since Ebay has put what looks to be a temporary moratorium on new affiliates. The move maybe an indicator that rumors of the company moving away from the PepperJam network are true.

Google Docs Privacy Breach

Google sent out a notification to users of Google Docs that their information may have been inadvertently shared with others unauthorized on the users account. The glitch affects .05% of documents. A troubling breach came on the same week Google announced its launch of a new sharing feature on Google Health. Such lapses in security only emphasize that you should be careful what you share.

Adzilla Hit with Class-Action Lawsuit

In continued fallout from companies like NebuAd using Deep Packet Inspection, the now defunct in the US Adzilla was hit with a class-action lawsuit (pdf) this week. Filed by Joseph Malley and KamberEdelson, the same team who went after NebuAd, the suit alleges that Adzilla and various ISPs violated anti-hacking and anti-wiretapping laws by digging into the contents of customers’ web packets.

Google Looses $721 in Small Claims Court

In a small victory for any AdSense user who has ever had their account mysteriously closed, Aaron Greenspan won a small claims lawsuit against Google for the $721 owed to his company when their account was terminated. The case was filed Santa Clara County courthouse in Palo Alto and was heard on March 2nd. True, more often than not Google often has good reason to permanently close the accounts of users that abuse AdSense through such things as click fraud. However, the methods the company uses to communicate have never been very transparent and honest users should have some means to remedy a mistake.