Google Agrees to Pay $90mln on Click Fraud Lawsuit

Hitokiri writes "Google has agreed to pay up to $90 million to settle a class action lawsuit 'Lane's Gifts v. Google'. The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by Lane's Gifts earlier this year in an Arkansas state court and is designed to settle all outstanding claims against Google for fraud committed using its pay-per-click ad system back to 2002Google has made a statement on their blog."

Comments

It's credits - not dollars

[tacokill]

Hey submitter and editors -- Google isn't PAYING anything. They are giving credits to buy more advertising.

Am I the only one who recognizes the difference between "getting paid $1" and "getting credit for $1 - at that company"?

Re:It's credits - not dollars

[dwater]

> the total amount of credits, ***plus attorneys fees***, will not exceed $90 million

Well, that must reduce the amount a little, surely...

Re:It's ALL credits - not dollars

[x2A]

Okay that's RUBBISH. The strength of the economy is nothing to do with how much money is out there, but how much it's moving around.

Cash is an abstraction of value. It's value comes from the fact that it's mutually recognised as having a value. That's where it's value comes from, a common-agreement. You find *anything* that people are just as willing to exchange for services/resources as money. Gold's "worthless" unless you can find someone who's willing to exchange it for something you want (eg, sex). A pig's useless if you're living with vegie hippies (not that they have money anyway).

Money means not having to look long and hard for someone who's willing to trade with you. This means you have time for other things. Money is an abstract representation of time ("time is money" is true). There is no way, by the furthest stretch of imagination, that you can say time is worthless. It's the most valuable thing you've got.

Re:Tip of the iceberg

[x2A]

Popups etc, I agree, but I've used google adwords from both sides - when looking for cheap secure certificates, for various sites I've worked on, I've followed google ad's AND made the purchase. Also, one of my clients registers adwords, I was actually surprised at how many direct sales it brings in (not counting people who come to the site, then come back later to make the purchase - can't track those so easily).

Google ads work because they're shown to you while you're actually looking for them.