New York — Google got struck with a lawsuit filed Tuesday by an advertiser in federal court accusing the company of deceiving him and charged for ads displayed on third-party Web sites, even though he left blank an “optional” box that seemed to address the issue.
The conflict is over Google’s popular AdSense program, which targets ads to keywords in articles and other content at participating sites. The program complements the conventional AdWords program, which runs targeted ads alongside Google’s search results. Ads under both programs generate the bulk of Google’s revenues.
The lawsuit, filed by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. on behalf of plaintiff David Almeida, seeks class action certification, with the affected class being AdWords customers who left the “‘CPC [cost-per-click] content bid’ input [box] blank” when setting CPC bids.
“The lawsuit involves a configuring in AdWords that gives advertisers the option to bid on clicks on Google’s “content network,” which consists of publishers using AdSense.”
The plaintiff in the case, David Almeida, had contracted for Google ads to promote his private investigation business in Massachusetts. Since he did not want to buy AdSense ads, Almeida said he left the maximum per-click bid blank, believing “optional” meant he could opt out of the AdSense program by doing so.
The hitch, according to the charge, is that Google does not inform advertisers that if the option is left blank, they will automatically be charged for bids on ad inventory across its content network.
Google allows its AdWords advertisers to place the maximum CPC they will pay when people click on their ads. Advertisers can submit different bid limits for ads that appear in search results lists and ads that appear, through Google’s AdSense program, on Google partner Web sites.
However, Google does not specify that to avoid running ads on the Google AdSense network; one must enter a zero into the appropriate input box rather than leaving it blank.
On the screen, customers see two blank boxes, one for typing in a bid for ads on Google.com and another one, marked “optional,” for putting ads on content network sites. Hence, experienced search engine marketers know to put a “0” in the box for the content network AdSense sites if they do not want ads there, says Brian Kabateck, lead counsel on the case and managing partner of Kabateck Brown Kellner. “For most people, if you see a box and leave it blank, you think you are not going to be charged,” he says.
“In my mind, it hurts the least sophisticated advertisers the most,” says Kabateck. “Wal-Mart and Amazon are not going to fall into this trap. They have got reps at the company. It is the smaller advertisers who do not have access to the same resources that get hit.”
As the lawsuit puts it, “By redefining the universally understood meaning of an input form left blank, and then intentionally concealing this redefinition, Google has fraudulently taken millions of dollars from Plaintiff and the members of the class.”
Not every lawsuits seeking class-action status are certified thus, but Kabateck expressed confidence that this case will be certified.
Kabateck has tussled with Google before and represented aggrieved AdWords customers in Advanced Internet Technologies (AIT) v. Google, a case that was ultimately folded into the $90 million click fraud settlement in which merchants are billed for fruitless traffic generated by someone who repeatedly clicks on an advertiser’s Web link with no intention of ever buying anything. He also won a multi-million dollar click-fraud judgment against Yahoo.
A Google spokesman said: “We have not been served with the complaint and will have no comment until we have the chance to review it.”