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Fortune is reporting that Google engineer Gokul Rajaram is leaving the Googleplex for a stab at his own company. Rajaram's greatest achievement? Oh, this little thing called AdSense, you heard of it? The ad system that places Google ads on blogs and Web 2.0 apps, keeping them financially viable against all business logic? After being hired in 2003, Rajaram supposedly worked to create the ad publishing network which now brings in, Fortune writes, "one-third of Google's revenue." Let's get this straight, people.

Susan Wojcicki did not invent AdSense, Marissa Mayer wasn't really involved at all, and this dude is saying he's the "godfather" of the system? Perhaps true, but more in a distant-send-you-a-birthday-card definition of "godfather." Looks like Fortune realized the error. The title of the story now refers to Rajaram as an AdSense "developer," but look at the URL. The original headline "adsense-creator-leaves-google" is still up there. And Rajaram is still quoted as saying, "When we started AdSense ..."

AdSense was a product created by Applied Semantics, a company Google acquired after it hired Rajaram, so for him, starting AdSense would be an especially neat trick. Oh, Rajaram meant the in-house ad system Google claims it rebranded as AdSense after buying Applied Semantics? Well, why didn't he say so?