AdSense publishers always wondered what piece of the pie they were getting versus Google. Some smart people over at WebmasterWorld figured it out based on the the financial data Google released last week.
Here is the information as quoted from WebmasterWorld's Forum:
Year end 2002 it was 88% to AdSense publisher (12% to Google)Quarter end, march/2003 it was 82% to AdSense publisher (18% to Google)
Year end 2003 it was 77% to AdSense publisher (23% to Google)
Quarter end, march/2004 it was 76% to AdSense publisher (24% to Google)
This is assuming a payout of 91M, 69M, 504M, 262M and a pocketing of 12M, 15M, 144M, 82M respectively to the dates above.
And I always thought Google was getting the higher percentage, but you will see that the figures are declining every quarter for the benefit of Google.