Google to pay $100 million to settle 14-year-old ad lawsuit

Google has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the tech giant of misleading advertisers about the geographic locations of ads placed through its Google Ads platform, as per a Reuters report.

The lawsuit, which was initially filed in 2011, claims that Google violated California's Unfair Competition law by charging advertisers for clicks on ads shown outside the geographic regions they selected.

The proposed settlement, filed in a California court on Thursday, is still pending approval by a judge. If approved, the settlement would resolve claims from advertisers who used Google's AdWords program (now called Google Ads) between June 1, 2009, and December 13, 2012.

The plaintiffs also alleged that Google failed to provide the promised "Smart Pricing" discounts, further exacerbating the issue.

In addition to this legal settlement, Google is facing a series of other significant legal challenges.

The company is currently embroiled in a federal antitrust lawsuit that could force it to sell its Chrome browser, as well as another trial stemming from accusations by the Department of Justice that Google has created a monopoly in the ad-tech industry.

The class action settlement comes after "extensive" fact discovery, which involved reviewing over 910,000 pages of documents and analyzing multiple terabytes of click data from Google. the plaintiffs' counsel emphasized the comprehensive nature of the investigation, which ultimately led to the settlement.