It's been like 10 years since I worked in the space but I'm pretty sure showing adsense on search results like that has been against the tos for a very long time unless you get a specific search feed(which is basically impossible these days and even 15 years ago was limited to companies like ask.com)

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shermantanktop 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sounds like a footgun waiting to go off? Unless Adsense is pretty explicit about this, beyond some language buried in a TOS.

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sanswork 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You have to agree to have read the policies when signing up and they've always been pretty clear about placement rules. Not placing ads on non-content pages is a pretty basic rule and would clearly apply to this since a search result is non-content.

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/48182?hl=en#zippy=...

	▲	ratrace 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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Sevii 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Adsense is designed to have as many footguns as possible.

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fooker 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Footguns as a service

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breput 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting. It seems like a ToS violation would have been worthy of a warning and revoking the offending earnings, but nope, it was no mercy or review.

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b00ty4breakfast 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

or at least an explanation. That would of course require a customer service apparatus designed to service customers rather than one designed to force them to become tangled in the abyssal morass.

	▲	sanswork 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		OP in this case isn't the customer, they are a supplier who has agreed to terms then decided to go against that agreement in a way that allowed scammers and himself attempt to defraud Googles actual customers. OP isn't the good guy in this story. Them breaking a very basic, clearly worded rule assisted in fraud. Of course they deserve to be banned from the network if they can't even follow that rule. Also all the other people in this story complaining about their rates falling off a cliff can blame people like OP who place ads in places they shouldn't leading to low quality traffic. No one wants to buy network ads if they have quality anymore.

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sanswork 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The person would have agreed to the placement rules when they signed up then went and broke them leading to Google and advertisers being defrauded by a bot. Why would you expect mercy there?