Wasn't the reason he took them to court down to Google not giving him any information and ignoring him when he tried to find out why.

I think the lesson here is that Google needs to be more accessible to people that make money from them and yes the guy is looking a little dumb after such a clear violation of the T&C's.

Or maybe Google doesn't want to release info on individual publishers for confidentiality?

Thats is true Barry. But the reason they lost the first case was because both the guy and Googles lawyer were clueless as to why the account had been closed.

If there was an additional line in the email Google sends to account administrators stating the reason other than the usual "Violation of T&C's" both these court cases could have been avoided.

Right, I kind of agree with you on that. But I also see why Google wouldn't want to say exactly why certain accounts are terminated, even directly to those that are terminated.

But that leads to gray areas which are open to interpretation which is exactly why this got to court in the first place.

What strikes me is that the Lawyer that Google sent knew as much information about the cause as the account holder.

It took them receiving bad press on this case to go into the database and find the notes on this guys account as to why it was closed.

It took them going to court to reveal this info publicly, which also embarrassed the publisher.

I'm surprised this got reversed in appeals. Normally Appeals courts do not retry cases. They look at the case and decide

1) Were there flaws in the trial?
2) Was the decision correct?

If there are flaws in the original trial an appeals court normally sends the case back to be retried. If the decision is incorrect they can overturn the decision based on precedent or written law. The fact that Google refused to disclose evidence at the plaintiff's request but then disclosed it after the trial because it suited Google ought not be grounds for dismissal. Clearly the plaintiff violated Google's terms of service. That stated, Google should have squashed him like an ugly bug during the original trial, not after.

This appeals court accepted and examined new evidence. I suppose you get second chances in small claims.

Thomas, not sure if this was named exactly "appeals court" or something else, since it was all done in small claims court. I am not sure, but all the paper work is linked to above.