Google springs a surprise

Company sends shock €100,000 charge to confused 12-year-old YouTuber; it has now cancelled the fee

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Google announced this week that it was cancelling the charges that had been racked up by the boy's mistakenly created AdWords account (Photo: EPA)

THE parents of a 12-year-old boy had a major shock when they suddenly received a demand for over €100,000 from Google. Their son and a 15-year-old friend had created a channel on Google-owned YouTube about their band, Los Salerosos, and decided to try to make money from it by having advertisements inserted into their videos.

YouTube can include adverts alongside videos with a cut of the revenue going to the individual who uploaded the material. However, instead of signing up to YouTube’s advert-insertion service, the boys had accidentally signed up to Google AdWords, an online advertising service which displays clients’ ads to viewers. Advertisers then pay Google when a user clicks on their advertisement and is re-directed to their website.

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