“Can a threatening court case bring down the Search Engine Giants?”

On behalf of California residents, Michael Voight and Mario Cisneros are two online gamblers who forfeited considerable sums playing at online gambling sites, and are now suing Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., as well as other Internet search engines. This case focuses on online casino advertising which is displayed together with Internet search results, and draws attention to the legality of online gambling sites and the question whether those sites are permitted to show their advertisements or tradebrands on those search engine sites. Cisneros and Voight’s case states that these players utilized links sponsored at search engines or Internet sites in order to find the online casinos where they finally lost their cash when gambling.

The California state judge, Richard Kramer of San Francisco, ruled for permitting the procedure of collecting evidence so that the case can proceed, and that was after Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., Ask Jeeves and ten additional search engines on the Internet went to court optimistic that the case would be dismissed by the judge. Ira Rothken, Cisneros and Voight’s lawyer commented that they received permission from the court to go ahead. He further commented that it’s very likely they’ll go to court if the case is not resolved.

The majority of the search engine companies have now stopped advertising online gambling sites since Cisneros and Voight took their case to court. According to Rothken, before the case started, each time someone clicked an advertisement of an unlawful online gambling site Yahoo would make almost thirteen dollars.

Google does not even allow advertising of online casinos and so there is no base to the entire case, says Steve Lagdon, the spokesman of Google, which is located in California’s Mountain View. The company outlaws advertisements aimed at directing people to Internet gambling sites, remarked Langdon, and quoted company rules set up before the case ever got started.

The search engine Ask Jeeves’ spokeswoman, Colby Zintl, stated that their company based in Oakland, California, while waiting legal action refuses to comment. Joanna Stevens, Yahoo’s spokeswoman, made no response to callers enquiring about the legal proceedings.

Neither Ask Jeeves nor Yahoo nor Google appear to be in dire circumstances due to coming court suits, if you wish to go by the stock market’s signs. At the Nasdaq on Monday, Google reached $10.68 or three point eight percent to a record peak of $290.94. Yahoo shares climbed to $38.62 by sixty cents and Ask Jeeves shares rose to $31.33 by twenty three cents.