San Francisco — A lawsuit that was originally filed in Santa Clara in 2005 by large number of companies and individuals accusing Google for the way it runs its search ad business is a long one: including everyone from bigwigs like American Airlines to one-off advertiser lawsuits, which claimed Google overcharged search marketers by charging over their daily spend limit. But now the search giant has finally agreed to settle its latest AdWords-related lawsuit that would ultimately cost Google up to $20 million, according to Mediapost.
The lawsuit arising over a disagreement about the meaning of “daily budget” in Google’s AdWords contract with search marketers. The two plaintiffs in the case, Minnesota printing company CLRB Hanson Industries and New Jersey resident Howard Stern (no relation to the radio personality), alleged that Google violated the AdWords agreement by charging marketers up to 120% of their maximum daily budget.
As per the settlement, the two named plaintiffs will each receive $20,000, other marketers will get ad credits and Google agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ lawyers more than $5 million, according to MediaPost.
The lawsuit was filed in 2005 in Santa Clara Superior Court in California, alleging that Google misrepresented what constitutes daily budget limits.
Google argued that it had only overcharged them to make up for days when it under-delivered ads, but still chose to end the litigation with a settlement.
U.S. District Court Judge James Ware in San Jose had earlier ruled that only search marketers who advertised for fewer than 30 days could proceed with the lawsuit.
A Google spokesman provided this comment on the settlement to Mediapost: “Google believes the claims are without merit, but we are pleased to have the litigation behind us and to move forward with our business objectives.”