Google relaxes its self imposed Adwords gambling ban

Following Google’s decision three months ago to allow European based online gambling companies to use the Adwords facility Google has reversed its self imposed ban and has now announced that it is will allow affiliate websites to advertise and bid for Google Adwords.

Affiliate companies wishing to advertise will have to adhere to all responsible gaming policies. This will apply to affiliates that operate without a betting license that generate and push traffic to gambling and related sites.

The move may see Google’s Adwords revenue increase dramatically as affiliates have been unable to use the Adwords facility and therefore rely solely on natural SEO to generate income, some analysts have predicted it could be as high as £300 million.

Lawsuit against online Google gambling advertisements thrown out

The US based search engines Yahoo and Google have both avoided costly lawsuits that have been thrown out by a Superior court judge in California. The lawsuits were brought against the two for accepting advertisements for online gambling.

The suit claimed that that a number of online entities including Google and Yahoo were violating state law by posting ads from online gambling companies. Two individual Californian residents who were claiming they lost a large sum (over 100K) of money by gambling online were enticed by the advertisements on Google and Yahoo.

Californian Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled that search engines are “immune from liability based on the federal Communications Decency Act, which shields Web sites from liability for material provided by outside companies.” Kramer also went on to rule that there was no reason for an injunction to be issued against the companies in question because they had already stopped accepting gambling ads in the United States.