José Javier, a Spanish teenager living in a small city named ‘Old Tower’ or Torrevieja in Spanish, decided to become a famous –and rich– YouTuber. Little did he know that instead of getting paid via Google’s Adsense, he was actually paying for advertising with Adwords.
In a bizarre event, a 12-year-old Spanish boy has ended up owing Google the whopping figure of $120,000 for advertising services. The high-school freshmen wanted to become a famous YouTuber.
The Spanish boy confused the popular Google Adsense program (in which content creators and website owners get paid for ad space) with Google’s Adwords service (in which companies and individuals pay Google for advertising). The USA-based company has released a statement this morning:
We have analyzed this case and we haven’t received payment from this particular user. We will proceed to cancel the user’s pending AdWords balance. Many online services, including Google AdWords, have age restrictions policies in place. We know how important it is to keep the family environment safe on the Internet. That’s why parents have our Safety Center available.
Inma Quesada, the mother of the teenager, told Spanish news agency, El País, that she didn’t know what her son was doing. According to her statement, the teenager decided to start an online ‘adventure’ with his friend. Both kids believed that they had subscribed to another service and that their activities were to be rewarded via advertising revenue.
José Javier entered a personal bank account number in Google’s AdWords dashboard. The account was arranged by his parents to encourage the kid to save money and was used to pay for the Ads. The mother announced that the company (Google) only asked for a bank account number and a name, without any more requisites.
The charges quickly piled up, from $20 at the start to $22,000. The account was already in red numbers when the bank called the parents to alert them. Google attempted to charge $80,000 for the served ads. The mother of the kid says that she is unable to understand how her son could spend that much money on the platform, especially when José Javier was ‘punished’ at the time the events unfolded with limited access to his personal computer.
Inma Quesada and her husband have contacted a lawyer, although Google’s reaction indicates that the parents’ decision will be unnecessary.
Source: El País
Image via Shutterstock
is this a real story?
“In a bizarre event, a 12-year-old Spanish teenager…”
Do you have any idea what ages that you have to be, to be a teenager? I’ll give you a hint: it doesn’t start at 12.
20?
i know it has something to do with something
No this is just a morning joke for you to get entertained
in Spain it does because of the umm doce
Here’s some interesting feedback to Google.
Bet me THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME someone has confused Google’s advertising platforms.
Why?
Because the names of Google’s advertising platforms ARE TOO SIMILAR AND ARE NOT SELF EXPLANATORY, regardless of the obvious stupidity involved on the part of the kid.
Go to https://www.google.com/adsense/ and then to https://www.google.com/adwords/
Still confused? Didn’t think so.
The kid is nothing more than a thief, looking for a quick buck. He should be forced to do community service hours for his crime.
so remeber this and don’t forget google will take money from you here http://www.1ranksseo.com full details
orale homes
Nah, it solely rests on the kid’s stupidity. Too young to realize that you should actually read stuff before signing up (which is fine, we all did stupid stuff when we were 12). Imagine all the legalese he didn’t read and just clicked on the checkbox just to get that YouTube moneyzzzz coming in. That legalese would’ve explained what AdWords does, as does the freaking landing page (which I suspect the kid also didn’t read).
How self-explanatory do you want names to be? Facebook, from its name, certainly doesn’t imply that it’s a social site where you can chat with people and share photos and stuff.
Bottom line, everyone should actually take time to read. That’s really just that.
True. And the signup forms contain a box you have to tick that you agree you are 18 years of age.
… and this example is one of the reasons kids aren’t allowed to sign up for either AdSense or AdWords (no, I don’t find the 2 confusing either).