US Supreme Court rejects Google appeal in lawsuit from advertisers
The US Supreme Court has dismissed Google’s attempt to curb a lawsuit that accuses the tech giant of misleading advertisers over the placement of their ads.
It means that the litigation, which has been made on behalf of disgruntled advertisers who used the service between 2004 and 2008, can move forward.
The lawsuit was filed in 2008, accusing Google of flouting California fair advertising laws because the company displayed the ads on “low quality” sites. That irked hundreds of thousands of advertisers using Adwords at the time due to the service’s pitch to place ads next to relevant Google searches. They argued that that the online behemoth should have disclosed that ads would also appear in undesirable places such as error pages and undeveloped websites.
Google’s argued that a class action should not been green lit because damages must be calculated for each advertiser. The appeals court rejected this statement and approved the use of formula to calculate the relevant costs based on the average advertiser’s experience.