Google has seem to have taken a major blow in Australia after The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has beat Google in appeals court on a case on search ads.

The ruling said that Google is now liable for deceptive paid search ads despite (as Pam notes) their press release on the ruling:

The Full Court declared that Google, by publishing the four advertisements that were the subject of the ACCCâs appeal on result pages of the Google Australia website, engaged in conduct that was misleading or deceptive, or likely to mislead or deceive, in breach of section 52 of the Trade Practices

A WebmasterWorld thread has advertisers going back and forth on who is right here. Some say Google should not be held liable because the ad ecosystem is simply too big to police that closely. While others feel that if Google can't police their ad network, then they should not profit from it.

What do you think?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.