Earlier this month, I noticed a strange charge for $160 on my credit card for advertising in Google's Adwords program. As I've never done any advertising on Google, I sent them an email to let them know and see if they could reverse the charge.
Turns out that was just the beginning; in the next two days, my credit card (still physically in my possession) was hit with additional Google charges for $677 and $699. I cancelled my credit card, and shortly thereafter received a nice email from Google saying they had closed the account that made the charges.
With all the overseas gaming and porn sites desperate for everyone's attention, I couldn't help but wonder if many of the credit card numbers stolen in the recent breach were being used to buy Google ads.
And, for investors in GOOG, what does this mean about the quality of their earnings?
Posted by dreeves at July 22, 2005 11:54 AM