"Google, Yahoo Being Sued For Player's Loses"

On behalf of the California public, Michael Cisneros and John Voight, two Internet gamblers who lost huge sums of money playing at Internet gambling web sites, have brought a case against Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc., and other Internet search engines. The court case concerns advertisements for online casinos that appear in conjunction with Internet search results. This case has brought the legal issues surrounding online gambling sites to the forefront. The question is whether search engine companies should be allowed to display advertisements or trademarks for those sites. In the case of Cisneros and Voight, both men eventually lost their money using sponsored links to locate the online casinos where they did their gambling, found at search engines or Web sites.

The search sites being sued include Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc., Ask Jeeves, and ten other Internet search engine companies. These sites went to court hoping to convince the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. But Richard Kraemer, a California state Judge, from San Francisco, ruled in favor of permitting the evidence gathering stage of the case to continue. Cisneros and Voight’s lawyer, Ira Rothkin states that the court gave them a green light to move forward. He products that unless the case is settled it is very likely that they'll go to trial.

Since Cisneros and Voight filed their lawsuit, most of the search engine companies have stopped displaying advertisements for online gambling sites. Before this, according to Rothken Yahoo! Was known to have made as much as $12.97 each time someone clicked on an ad directing him or her to an illegal Internet gambling web site.

Google spokesman, Steven Langdon, which is located in Mountain View, California, notes that Google doesn’t even allow advertising for online casinos. He says that therefore the case is wholly without merit. Langdon cites company guidelines, established prior to the filing of the court suit, that prohibit ads whose primary purpose is to drive traffic to online gambling sites”.

Search engine Ask Jeeves company spokesperson, Kolbey Zintl, said that the Oakland, California-based search engine company refuses to comment on the pending litigation. Joanna Stevens, Yahoo! company spokeswoman, would not respond to calls with regard to a comment on the case.

If the stock market is to be considered as any indication, not Google, Yahoo!, or Ask Jeeves appear to be suffering from the upcoming lawsuit in any way. Google Nasdaq shares on Monday climbed as much as $10.68 or 3.8 percent to a record $290.94, while Ask Jeeves shares increased 23 cents to $31.33 and Yahoo! Shares grew 60 cents to $38.52.