Google to pay $100 million to settle 14-year-old advertiser lawsuit

Google has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class action lawsuit against the company’s advertising service Google Ads (at the time the lawsuit was filed, Google Adwords). The class action lawsuit was filed in 2011 and accused the tech giant of charging for clicks on ads that were shown to users outside the regions specified by the advertisers.

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The suit was brought by advertisers who accused Google of violating California competition law by misleading advertisers about the regions where their ads would appear and failing to honor its commitment to provide a discount on its ad service under the Smart Pricing program.

«This case involved advertising product features that we changed more than a decade ago, and we are pleased to see it resolved,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said in a statement.

The settlement was reached after a “thorough” review of the facts, which the plaintiffs’ lawyers said involved a review of more than 910,000 pages of documents and “several terabytes” of Google Ads click data. The class of plaintiffs includes advertisers who used Google’s advertising service between June 1, 2009, and December 13, 2012. The judge hearing the case must now approve Google’s settlement before the settlement can be finalized.

It should be noted that Google also has more serious legal problems. It is currently facing a federal antitrust lawsuit that could force the company to sell its Chrome browser. In addition, the company faces another lawsuit from the US Department of Justice, which accuses Google of creating a monopoly in the advertising technology sector.