A fight over advertising on low quality web pages leads into an arguement over confidentiality online

Plaintiffs in a case in the Northern District of California involving Google’s AdSense for Domains and AdSense for Errors argue that Google has placed ads on low-quality web pages. The case has evolved into a battle over confidentiality in addition to the stated reason of whether low-quality web pages are poor vehicles for displaying advertising. The two Google programs involved in the case provide ad spots on non-editorial domains (parked domains) and website error pages.

Anonymous web data has been entered into evidence in an attempt to prove that parked domains and error pages (low-quality web pages) can generate strong performance and click throughs.  A federal judge for the case ordered Google to release the names of four advertisers involved in the evidence report. The judge feels that the names of the advertisers should be revealed to ensure that the data is accurate. Google is fighting to preserve the anonymity of that data. Releasing the names could set a precedent that would certainly have broad implications for the future of data privacy as it is handled both in court and in politics.

Read more: https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50002