Slashdot Mirror
Webhost Sues Google
TheOcho writes "Webhost company AIT has decided to file a class action lawsuit against the internet giant Google. According to the article the dispute is over click fraud. AIT claims they have lost around $500,000 due to fraudulent clicks. They claim that Google is hitting their website from 'the same IP addresses'."
And that they are a Microsoft showcase shouldn't have to do anything with it either.
When Google invoices you for clicks, a share of this money is going to sites that are showing the ads. There are sites that fraudulently drive clicks in order to get more money.
When my firm used adwords, we saw our monthly fees from Google climbing steadily, from $10-20 per month to over $1000, but with no matching increase in traffic, and almost zero contacts via our web site (which was clearly aimed only at Belgian customers). We estimated that 95% of the clicks were fraudulent. We had no way of checking who was clicking on our site. So we cancelled the program and focussed on more traditional sales.
This is, IMO, one of the major skeletons lurking in Google's cupboard.
My blog
Any search on Google for AIT, Google, and lawsuit yield nothing: + 40%.
That's odd - I get 27,000 results. Admittedly, a lot of press releases on the first page, but a Google News search turns up several interesting results, including this.
I used AIT for a while a couple of years ago.
THEY.ARE.SCUM.
They billing practices are blatantly fraudulent, sometimes charging you ridiculous "bandwidth charges" that exceed hundreds of dollars a month. Calls to billing never get answered, and neither is there an obvious way for one to close his/her account.
It took me over three months to have my account closed. My total on-hold time over those three months was over 8 hours. I left atleast 20 messages, out of which three got answered. I would call and leave messages, and eventually after a couple of days someone would call me back and give me a bunch of instructions on how to close my account (visit some obscure page, print document, sign, fax etc.), and then... nothing. I'd call back and after trying for days to get through to someone, they'd say they never received it, and I'd have to do it all over again.
Sometimes they would say they received it, and the account would be closed; and the next month, my credit-card would be billed again.
They have promised me to repay my money back, and I've seen nothing in over three years.
Not to my surprise, other people have been through similar situations with this provider, and some of their stories are pretty terrible. Read all about it here:
http://autsucks.com/
They even have ex-employees there talking about how bad they were treated.
AIT is very very bad. I colocated in their datacenter for about a year, paying $100/month for a verbal agreement of 100 GB bandwidth. There was absolutely no paper record of the 100 GB limit and not verbal record of what charges would apply if I went over. My paper contract with them had explicity voided out the section regarding charges for excessive bandwidth.
s .html
One month I received a bill for $6000 citing "excessive" bandwidth. I had used approximately 200 GB of bandwidth, about double my allotted. I called and they assured me it would be fixed. Then the next months bill was $10,000. Their billing system continued to try to draft my credit card.
I finally had to take them to court over the disputed charges. They "waived" the $16,000 right before we entered the courtroom. The eventual settlement came to around $600. These guys are crooks.
http://www.webhostingratings.com/plans/AIT-Review
"AIT is flat out terrible and possibly the worst service out there."
"I have horror stories about AIT on which I could dwell for hours, but let's just say that AIT's attitude no matter what happens is "punish the customer." They feel free to mess with your stuff whenever they feel like it, change your deal on a whim, and generally suck! Big-time weasels! We are planning a big crew party for after we blow them up; we'll call it "Operation AIT Freedom!"
"When I moved, AIT continued to bill me for "service" on an account that was closed. When I wouldn't pay, they ruined my credit. I could not even talk to credit manager about it. Bad guys!"
""Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to one or more unanswered complaints.""
"They've stolen $900 from me by disk over-usage and fraudulent billing practices."
"AIT systematically stole money from us for months."
These are all from different customers. This company has consistently and systematically screwed their customers.
I live in Fayetteville and have dealt with AIT for hosting stuff ever since they came into existence. The business was started by a ex-soldier (Clarence Briggs) and is now one of the world's largest web hosts as far as number of domains hosted. They are not just some "random" company as other people have said.
/. article) as of last week over advertising fraud. They claim that the newspaper is advertising a lot higher # of unique visitors to their wesbite than what they actually receive (they are hosted with AIT). It's interesting in that to me it seems AIT is revealing private information about a website they are hosting (not for much longer I bet!).
However, the point that the article linked is in our local newspapers online site is valid. Also, probably the reason that it talks about AIT's plans for expansion into storefronts is because Fayetteville has a vested interest in what is going on with AIT as they provide good high-tech, high-paying jobs for our area. People reading the newspaper (which the online article is a clone of what was in our newspaper), want to know what is going on with that company (which is smack in the middle of our attempt to revitalize our downtown area).
Another interesting tidbit is that AIT is also suing the newspaper (that was linked in the
So, basically, you all are getting a look into my town's petty politicking by one of the largest companies that is based out of here. Enjoy.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Well considering AIT's bad reputation with web savvy people all over the country, I could see angry customers purposely clicking the pay-per-click link over the free link every time they search for "web hosting".
Also how do they treat their own employees? Their consistent 'evil doing' is coming back to kick themselves in the asses. They will not win this case. They likely just ruined what little chance they had of gaining new customers, unaware of their greedy unethicalness.
Am no fek Buddhist, but this is enlightenment.