I've noticed an annoying trend developing. People using the terms "legal" or "illegal" when referring to actual, or potential, Adsense TOS violations. Google's Terms of Service are not law. They are the rules, but not the law. Violating the Adsense TOS is not illegal. Your breaking Google's rules and your account could get banned but the police are not going to be knocking at your door. This trend falls under the growing memes perpetuated by brainwashed webmasters as they succumb to the Google domination (monoploly?) of the internet. Just like everyone accepting Matt Cutts's blog posts as the Gospel according to Google. arrrg!
Hate to be pedantic about this but the use of the word "illegal" is legitimate when talking about rules and regulations. Even though as you've pointed out, it's usually used in the context of common law. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/illegal
Sure we can casually use either word and we all know what it means, BUT, using legal or illegal has an un-needed "weight" behind it that is not warranted. But perhaps i'm just ranting, or overly influenced by this great post at WW http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3334098.htm
I am sure our friends from Linguistics can answer this. IMHO, illegal is illegal. It's NOT legal, means : It's against the rules .. or law (at least Google Law). Cheers,
Ever made an illegal move in Chess? Pisses off the opposition, leads to embarrassment, but the police don't knocking on the door for that either.