Google coughs up $100 million to settle a 14-year class action suit in the US

Google’s got its hands full on the legal front these days. On one side, it’s battling a major federal antitrust case over its dominance in digital ads and search—something Judge Amit Mehta weighed in on back in August 2024. On the other hand, the tech giant is also cleaning up old legal messes. One of them is a 14-year-old class-action lawsuit claiming its old AdWords system charged advertisers for clicks that came from outside their target zones.

The company is now cutting a $100 million check to settle claims it overcharged advertisers for out-of-town clicks, as per a report by Reuters. The settlement, filed in a California court, just needs a judge’s stamp of approval.

The lawsuit zeroed in on Google’s AdWords tricks between 2004 and 2012, calling out two big gripes: first, its Smart Pricing system allegedly shortchanged advertisers on discounts they should’ve received. Second, ads kept popping up outside agreed-upon locations, meaning businesses got charged for clicks from places they never wanted to target in the first place. The lawsuit, which kicked off in 2011, claimed Google violated California’s Unfair Competition Law.

Here’s how Google Ads normally works: businesses only pay when someone actually clicks on their ad. But this lawsuit claims Google stuck them with charges for clicks they never wanted—like when ads reached totally wrong audiences. Untangling this mess took almost forever, involving over 910,000 pages of evidence and terabytes of user data to sift through.

‘Not our fault, but fine, settled’

In a statement to Reuters, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda insisted the company did nothing wrong, saying, “This case was about ad product features we changed over a decade ago and we’re pleased it’s resolved.”

The settlement could mean a direct payout for businesses that used AdWords between 2004 and 2012. This whole legal mess is a wake-up call for anyone running ads online. You can’t just set it and forget it. Smart marketers keep their eyes glued to both their ad results and their invoices, making sure they’re getting what they paid for.

Google’s legal headaches keep piling up. On top of the ongoing federal antitrust case that could force the company to sell Chrome, the EU slapped Google with a huge fine for antitrust violations—something it’s been fighting since 2017. And let’s not forget the €2.4 billion penalty it faced before for boosting its shopping platform unfairly.