A suit filed last August against Sex.com and search engine heavyweights including Yahoo and Google, will move forward, after the defendants lost their motion to strike core allegations in the plaintiff’s complaint.
Cisneros et al v. Yahoo! et al, a class-action suit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, claims the defendants knowingly profited from unlawful business practices by accepting paid advertising from allegedly illegal Internet gambling operations, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Ira Rothken of the San Francisco-based Rothken Law Firm.
“Large American companies at least have the appearance of aiding and abetting Internet gambling, and Internet gambling is unlawful in California,” Rothken tells AVNOnline.com. “Internet gambling is currently located in jurisdictions that are hostile to American law. This is another method for those that have been impacted by Internet gambling to be able to do something about it, to hold these search engines responsible by having the courts make them stop it.”
As a reaction to the suit, the companies involved, including Sex.com, have curtailed or stopped accepting gambling ads. Each of the defendants has since filed an affidavit with the court stating that in order to prevent an injunction against their continued operation. Rothken said that while there are still gambling ads out there, Sex.com has completely stopped posting them.
“To a certain extent, we think the case has already been successful, and now we’re asking the court to permanently enjoin the act of advertisement of Internet gambling and for these large search engines to give back the money they made off of this alleged conduct,” Rothken says.
The companies, which also include Overture, Ask Jeeves, Looksmart, AltaVista, Lycos, JupiterMedia, CNET, FindWhat.com, Kanoodle.com, and Business.com, will press forward with their defense.
“They’re saying the [gambling] banners on your home page are illegal—all advertising for gambling is illegal, whether you get a cut or not,” Sex.com owner Gary Kremen tells AVNOnline.com. “Our position is if you don’t get a cut, you’re OK.”
While the lawyers are currently in the discovery phase of the proceedings, Rothken says that the plaintiffs – individuals who have lost thousands of dollars through online gambling sites – will be asking for financial remuneration from the search engines. He thinks he can get it for them by using the same tools the engines use to calculate click-through rates and dollar amounts. Further, the plaintiffs are throwing around some rather large dollar amounts, claiming that Yahoo, through its Overture subsidiary, made as much as $12.97 per click-through on ads directed towards illegal gambling sites.
Kremen, meanwhile, cautioned other webmasters promoting from Internet casinos.
“I think all adult webmasters – a lot of them have interests in gambling – should talk to their attorneys and look long and hard at what type of relationships they have with these casinos,” he says. “I think if you get paid a cut, you are in absolute legal trouble. The question, in our case is, we don’t have a CPA relationship, we have a pay-per-click. We don’t get more money whether someone wins or loses, we just sell banner space.”
For a copy of the suit, go here.
