• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 17, 2025

A federal judge has granted preliminary approval to Google's $100 million settlement of a class-action alleging it overcharged some pay-per-click advertisers by failing to honor their requests to limit ads geographically, and reneging on a promise to discount some ads.

In an order issued Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in San Jose said he was likely to allow the deal to go forward, ruling that the proposed settlement appeared “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”

If granted final approval, the settlement will resolve a lawsuit dating to 2011, when advertiser Rene Cabrera claimed he was overcharged for pay-per-click ads he purchased to market his former business, Training Options.

Cabrera alleged in a class-action complaint that he purchased ads from Google between 2008 and 2009, and that the company failed to correctly apply its “smart pricing” discount during that time.

He also alleged that Google charged him for clicks that originated from states other than the ones he was targeting. He targeted Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, but alleged that he was charged for clicks from users in New York, Virginia, California, Illinois, Texas, and other states, according to court papers.

A Google spokesperson said last month that the case “was about ad product features we changed over a decade ago.”

Davila originally threw out the lawsuit on the grounds that Cabrera no longer owned Training Options, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case in 2021. After the appellate court returned the matter to Davila, Google argued that its agreement advertisers didn't set out a particular “smart pricing” formula, and that its “Help Center” disclosed that ads could be shown to users regardless of their location.

The settlement class includes everyone who advertised on the Google platform formerly called AdWords between January 1, 2004 and March 22, 2011, and paid for clicks that didn't originate from the location selected by the advertiser.

Davila also certified a “subclass” of advertisers, described in the court papers as follows: “All persons and entities located within the United States who, between June 1, 2009 and December 13, 2012, advertised through Google’s AdWords Program and paid for clicks on ads on Google’s Display Network where the advertiser’s settings allowed its ads to show on both the Search and Display Networks and the advertiser did not set a Display Network bid different from the Search Network bid.”

Davila will decide whether to grant the deal final approval after a hearing scheduled for August 21.