Google Faces Possible Class Action Over Autoplay Ads Triggered By Bots
July 27, 2023A potential class action lawsuit has been filed against Google, claiming it overcharges advertisers for the “privilege of autoplaying their advertisements into the void.”
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District in California. At issue is whether Google overcharged advertisers by playing ads on sites that are not publicly indexed or listed by search. The plaintiffs contend that results in “autoplaying their advertisements into the void.”
The action stems from Google’s “TrueView” ad program. The contention is that by autoplaying ads served to unlisted webpages, it inflates metrics. The progam serves YouTube and other apps across the web, charging advertisers for actual views rather than impressions. The ads ask users if they want to skip the video after five seconds.
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The ads allegedly served to bots and play outdon’t meet the promised standards of actual views, the plaintiffs contend.
Analytics firm Adalytics claims that roughly 80 percent of Google’s video-ad placements on third-party sites violated its standards.
“This means that rather than requiring a consumer to actually click on a video to see the advertisement, the video would effectively play on its own,” states the complaint. “This has the material effect of downgrading the value of each ‘view,’ as some of these views would not be a view at all. “So, rather than paying for actual plays from actual potential customers, Google deceived advertisers into paying for advertisement views by Google bots itself.”
Google didn’t immediately issue a comment.
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