Google is one of the largest companies in the world. Its products and services are used on a daily basis by millions of users around the world. So it’s really not surprising that every now and then, the company finds itself embroiled in a lawsuit over various disputes about its operations, products, and services. But Google is hoping to scratch at least one of those lawsuits off its list by agreeing to a 100 million dollar cash settlement for an ongoing class action lawsuit for the past 14 years.

The 14-year-old lawsuit

A bit of backstory: In March 2011, 14 years ago, a class action lawsuit was filed against Google. The complaint alleged that Google overcharged advertisers, failed to provide the discounts it promised, and charged for ads clicked outside the geographic areas the advertisers targeted.

If you’re unfamiliar with how Google runs its ads, it uses a pay-per-click system. Advertisers only pay when a user clicks on their link to go to their website. Based on this, the lawsuit claims that Google charged advertisers for clicks outside their demographic. It means that if a company in the US is targeting US customers, it should only pay for clicks for US users. It also means that if you’re living in Australia, by right, you shouldn’t see the ad since you’re not part of the demographic. Advertisers also shouldn’t have to pay since you’re not who they were initially targeting.

The lawsuit claims that Google breached its contract by allegedly manipulating its Smart Pricing formula to artificially reduce discounts. They also accused Google of misleading them by failing to limit ad distributions to designated locations. This is in violation of California’s competition law.

Google’s 100 million cash settlement

Whether or not Google is guilty of these accusations is unclear. However, Google wants to move on and is agreeing to a 100 million dollar settlement. Google insists that its settlement is by no means an admission of guilt. According to Google spokesman Jose Castaneda, “This case was about ad product features we changed over a decade ago and we’re pleased it’s resolved.”

The reason the case took 14 years to reach its conclusion is due to the overwhelming amount of submitted evidence. This included more than 910,000 pages of documents and several terabytes worth of click data. The advertisers in the lawsuit also participated in several mediation sessions.

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