Green Lights For Google’s Click Fraud Settlement

For a company like Google, this will prove to be peanuts I imagine. Seriously, only $90 million collectively for click fraud. Sounds like someone got off easy…

An Arkansas Judge has approved the terms of Google’s settlement with advertisers suing the search giant for click fraud.

Google (Quote, Chart) will pay $60 million in credits to advertisers who claimed the company improperly billed them for fraudulent “clicks” on their ads, and $30 million in legal fees for a $90 million tab, according to the ruling.

Those credits can be used to purchase new advertising with Google, essentially putting more money back into the company. The attorneys do not get paid in credits.

The new deal brings closure to a gift shop’s gripe that the search engine giant was charging advertisers for clicks on online ads that did not come from consumers.

Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles and Caulfield Investigations filed the suit in February 2005 in Arkansas against Google, Yahoo (Quote, Chart), Time Warner (Quote, Chart) and its America Online and Netscape divisions.

Lane claimed Google and the other plaintiffs collected fees for pay-for-click advertising, which were not actually generated by consumers clicking on the search engine sites to get to Lane’s Gifts…. Source: InternetNews