Google AdSense Terms Unavailable in Plain English

Google has since some months now new terms and conditions it asks web sites to accept, if they wish to continue to display Google advertisements, however there is a problem: they are displayed in foreign languages.

Google appears to have assumed that anyone having an account in France, for example, is capable of reading long legal documents in French, rather than allowing site owners to choose to display the terms in the language they are most comfortable with, for example English.

The message upon logging in to Google AdSense accounts for English language publishers registered in France for example, starts of with a promising sentence "Please review and accept our Terms and Conditions shown below." However, the rest of the page, detailed legal jargon, is all in french. That is, until you reach the end of the page when you are now presented with 3 options, now back in English:

* Yes, I have read and accept the above Terms and Conditions.
(You represent that you are authorized to act on behalf of, and bind to this Agreement, the owner of this account.)

* Remind me the next time I log in.
(You must accept the above Terms and Conditions by May 25, 2008, or you will no longer be able to login to AdSense and make changes to your Account.)

* No, I do not accept the above Terms and Conditions.
(Note: If you choose not to accept these Terms and Conditions, you will not be able to continue using AdSense. You can resume access by logging in and accepting these Terms and Conditions by May 25, 2008.)

Google should have allowed for a 4th option:

* I would like to, but cannot, as our lawyers do not speak French and so we cannot accept these terms until they are published in English, or made available a hyperlink to a page containing the English language equivalent, hopefully before May 25, 2008.

As with all humongous multi-billion dollar web businesses, such as Google, Skype and a host of others, there is no easy way to contact the company: customer service is not something super-large Internet corporations provide, the maxim being that if you are big on the web you don't need to spend money on customer service as you grow your business, such expenses are only to be accorded to "traditional small to medium sized businesses or bricks-and-mortar companies."