The kid had a plan: put up some music videos of his band on YouTube, plug into Google’s AdSense program to run ads alongside, make enough money to buy instruments, play music, get rich and go buy a mansion.
Great plan!
One little hitch: he got AdSense confused with AdWords.
AdSense is the advertising service from Google that pays online publishers to display and make money off ads when visitors click. AdWords is the advertising service that charges online advertisers when visitors click on their ads.
From that little hitch came a big surprise: it’s how the parents of José Javier, 12, from the Alicante town of Torrevieja, in Spain, wound up staring at a bill of €100,000 ($111,000 USD, £90,000 GBP) from Google, according to a report from the Spanish daily El País .
Google, fortunately, has written off the amount and let José off the hook. The company’s Spanish offices sent a statement to El País saying that after analyzing the case, and after not having received any money from José, it was canceling the outstanding AdWords balance.
Google said that like many online services, AdWords has age restrictions on use.
As you can see on Google’s age limits support page, in Spain, you have to be 14 or older to open any type of Google account at all. The age limit goes up to 18+ to open either AdSense or AdWords accounts.
At 12, José was obviously too young for any of Google’s accounts.
In its statement, Google also referred to its Family Safety Center.
But José’s mom isn’t swallowing the gentle rebuke implied by handing over that link. This is Google’s fault, she said, telling El País that it should never have been so easy for him to open the account in the first place.
All José had to do was to provide a bank account number – one from an account his family had opened to save up for future expenses, like a driving license – and to reserve a product name.
That was in mid-August. The charges started to rack up in early September. The balance started out modest, at around €15, but eventually climbed to €19,700.
At €2,000, the account was already in the red. The bank called, and that’s when José’s parents first found out about the bill.
They immediately blocked the account and returned the previous receipts. That didn’t keep Google from trying to load it up again with another €78,000.
At first, they punished their son by restricting his computer use. But eventually, an analysis of the computer uncovered the innocent mistake.
The boy’s parents retained a lawyer, but given that Google dropped the charges, they didn’t have to take the matter to court.
José’s mother, Inma Quesada:
He thought he was making money and not vice versa. [He] wanted to buy instruments for the band and stuff, but [one of his friends] also told him that if they got rich, they could have a mansion.
I guess that in the Tales from the “you should have read the terms of service!!!” Crypt, this is small potatoes.
After all, José didn’t accidentally sign away his firstborn.
qqq
Well, if you give your child access to spend YOUR money then you have no right to complain when this happens.
NΞTSΞC DUDΞ (@NetSecDude)
Exactly. They give a bank account number to a 12 year old then complain when something goes awry.
Bryan
Agreed. Though this was a somewhat innocent–albeit still foolish–mistake, handing the Ferrari keys to a teenager has a fairly predictable outcome every time.
Huzzah for doling out bite-sized responsibility to prepare kids for handling more. My son’s had my CC on his Steam account for months. The first dozen times or so I had to manually enter it, habitually unchecking the “save for later” box. He still asks every time to make a purchase, never more than he can pay me back from his own money. I’ve not seen any surprise purchases via Steam and don’t expect any. Earn my trust and get more; waste it and lose more.
I’ll still show him this article–a good example of consequences for not paying attention.
Bryan
Granted, the lad’s age would have given Google a slippery time enforcing this debt, kudos for their completely absolving it rather than insisting the parents are liable.
…on the third hand, what’s a measly hundred thou when you’re Google? :-)
Matt
I call bs.
You have to create ad groups, and ads in adwords. This kid was obviously trying to get traffic to his “band” and things got out of control to the point he had to play dumb.
They shouldn’t have let the kid off so easily
Bryan
I initially took this story (or rather the kid’s story) at face value…but on second thought you’re probably right. If he was able to create an ad group (and all the other red tape, since AW is somewhat of a PITA), he probably knew enough to tell the difference and wound up needing to play innocent or face some rather ominous music.
Tochukwu
I just have a feeling this kid was smart enough to play dumb when shit hit the ceiling.