An advertiser sued Google in federal court Tuesday claiming the company deceived 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 lawsuit accuses Google of defrauding advertisers out of millions of dollars collectively by “redefining the universally understood meaning of an input form left blank.”
The plaintiff, David Almeida, signed up for Google adwords to promote his private investigation business in Massachusetts. Because 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.
Instead, it turned out the AdWords bid applied when he did not exercise that option, and he should have put “zero” into the box to opt out, said his attorney, Brian Kabateck.
“Most of the customers that actually fall victim to this scam are the unsophisticated advertisers,” Kabateck said. “The sophisticated advertisers will know better, will know how to do it. These are the little guys that don’t have money to lose on a program like this.”
Google declined comment, saying it had not yet received the complaint.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., by Kabateck, Brown and Kellner, a law firm that has frequently filed lawsuits seeking multimillion dollar judgments or settlements. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and class-action status.
This particular law firm joined in a $90 million settlement in 2006 over click fraud against Google and reached a multimillion dollar settlement with Yahoo over similar complaints.
Woow what a post.
Why waste money on ppc when you can be ranked on search engines naturally on the first page?
People waste money via ppc then when they lose money due to their own lack of knowledge and ignorance they sue ppc company’s like google.
I hope that they learn the hard way.
I bet he was such a newbie that he did not even realize that most of his sales came from Adwords and parked domains, and not Google – which is usually the case.
I bet he did not even have tracking software and that is why he did not catch this early on and nix it before it became an issue to him.
CCC
Good point.
As a defense I am sure Google will raise the fact that not only do they have explanations on their site, and FAQ, as to what each item on the from means, and of course, you can always the customer service rep to discuss and ask.
Then of course as you point it out it would be on his reports, which again if he did not understand he could call his rep.
But we are a society of blamers.
Something goes in a way we did not expect we look for someone to blame.
Maybe if you don’t ask question and get your problems fixed then you put yourself in a position to sue, get what you have gottem for free, plus damages.