Third Time's a Charm? Google Sued for Click Fraud (Again)
The proposed class action -- the third this year -- was filed on behalf of several hundred Pennsylvania and New Jersey residents, and accuses Google of exposing publishers to click fraud following a breach of contract, negligence, unjust enrichment and unfair business practices. This class action complaint follows the Arkansas lawsuit in May, since settled for $90 million, and the lawsuit brought by Click Defense in California in June. "Google made a settlement that was ridiculously unfair to publishers, and anyone who was involved should be appalled," said Samuel Lassoff, attorney for the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit, and himself a publisher who used Google AdSense, referring to the $90 million settlement. "I still think a lot of businesses don't even know they were defrauded."
Lassoff, who was not part of any previous class action lawsuits, said he filed the class action complaint on behalf of Pennsylvania and New Jersey residents because he's a licensed attorney in both states. The complaint covers the time period of October 2005 to February 2006. "I was attacked by other competitors," Lassoff said, adding that his business -- which includes coupons-and-promotions.com and winatshopping.com -- was defrauded of several hundred dollars due to click fraud. "Google could probably care less. Everything's automated, 24/7. They rack up ad dollars all week long and don't even need to rest." There are currently no other plaintiffs involved in the class action, but Lassoff said he believes there are "anywhere from fifteen to a thousand people who aren't aware or who opted out of previous settlements." Lassoff said he filed the class action when it became apparent that Google had no intention of responding to his complaints about click fraud. Lassoff said he e-mailed and phoned Google several times, but that Google never responded. Google has yet to respond to this class action complaint, but the complaint was only filed in court August 10. Lassoff said he was also defrauded by Yahoo and Ask.com, but that the majority of fraud occured with Google's AdSense. He said he "hasn't gotten around" to suing Yahoo and Ask yet. But Rick Miller, principal of online marketing firm Brulant, said his clients haven't been experiencing high levels of click fraud, or seen click fraud problems increase. "What I've found is more of an issue, actually," said Miller, "was not click fraud but competitors poaching our brand names to use in AdSense." Google recently fought back against allegations that it does not combat click fraud. In a recent post on Google's company blog, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's business product manager for Trust & Safety, said third-party estimates of click fraud are inaccurate. However, Google does not release its click-fraud accounting methodology "because doing so would make it easier for fraudsters to try to defeat our systems." Google CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking at the Search Engine Strategies conference in August, said Google will eventually release more data on click fraud. |
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Comments (10)
I think this guy, Lassoff, is a scammer. He sets up two horribly designed sites (personally, I would never sign up for a credit card through a web site other than the creditors') which look like ad sites. He offers no product of his own, he's just trying to "rack up ad dollars all week long and don't even need to rest." My opinion: he can't make any money off his crappy sites, so he's trying to blame Google for his failure. BTW, coupons-and-promotions.com has "Valentines Deals" still up on top, if you're not going to update your site, nobody is going to come.
Posted by infinitepi | August 17, 2006 4:09 PM
You are right. This guy has two sites that I would be ashamed of saying were mine. I would not be surprised if this guy went to internet cafes and clicked on his own sites. This would rack up a huge bill and dthen he could sue Google.
Posted by Da Man | August 17, 2006 5:44 PM
Hmmm....Is Google now paying you folks to post attacks on these advertisers? Many folks know that these adnetworks are inflating numbers...Just check out these sites designed to help folks make $ by clicking: www.autohitsnow.com www.nuclearhits.com www.e-topbiz.com I love Google, but like my mom used to say - "usually where there is smoke, there is fire"....
Posted by SkepticalOne | August 18, 2006 10:32 AM
actually, no, i don't work for google, nor do i know anyone who does. I don't see how google could be expected to prevent people like this scammer from going to other computers to click their own ads, the problem as i see it is not with google, but the whole pay-per-click advertising system, it's just ripe for exploitation
Posted by infinitepi | August 18, 2006 1:22 PM
Yep, pay-per-click is inherently vulnerable, although, IMHO, Google seems to be doing a better job policing click fraud. Or it may just be that they're doing a better job addressing the problem in public. They lost the PR battle early on when they refused to give creedence to advertisers' concerns, responding only in the courtroom. Lately, they're getting better about engaging customers on the topic.
Posted by Steve Bryant | August 18, 2006 1:42 PM
I think a lot of the heat on google about this latley is due to the sheer volume of ads they sell. I wonder what their share of the market is and what kind of percentage of click fraud they have compared to others.
Posted by infinitepi | August 18, 2006 3:43 PM
I have heard their share is around 30%. The big problem for Google right now is not so much people like this trying to ride the "sue google" wave, but the fact that no mater which way they turn, it generates more publicity around a big problem that's just not getting wished away by Google's hubris. They have a huge clickfraud problem (think about it - 1% gets into the dozens of millions of dollars a year), and from their August 8 report it looks li eek they're inadvertently pulling the covers back on charging practices around repetitive clicking that advertisers are also not going to like. I think Google's advertising business, the source of 99% of their revenue, is about to get "adjusted"... ;-)
Posted by WorkingLate | August 19, 2006 9:51 AM
Steve, a confusing but interesting article, but must you give the guy a couple of clean, free links from this domain? :) "accuses Google of exposing publishers" "Google made a settlement that was ridiculously unfair to publishers," Really? Normally, *advertisers* are victims of click fraud, not publishers. Publishers are sometimes the ones who click ads on their own sites and at a stretch a rival publisher could click ads cleverly on another publisher site, hoping to close his rival's AdSense account. The cited images suggest that Lasoff was an *advertiser* - "plaintiff's advertising account". Perhaps he bought AdWords to bring visitors to his sites? The alleged fraud could have occurred on publisher sites, but then he could have turned off Content sites in his account.
Posted by Ash Nallawalla | August 22, 2006 6:38 PM
Google made over 10 BILLION dollars (+$10,000,000,000.00) and recently settled a class action lawsuit alleging fraud in the amount of 90 million; do the math? = Google learns that fraud pays and Enron executives are innocent victims Google executives should go to jail for their crimes.
Posted by Fight Corporate Fraud | August 24, 2006 6:16 PM
Google has moved to dismiss a class action click fraud lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania in August, saying the plaintiff is required by his AdWords contract to file suit in California.
Posted by Google Watch | November 6, 2006 11:09 AM