Lawyers Cash Out

The class action suit is based on the claim that Google charged 120% of the daily budgeted amount on AdWords campaigns.

U.S. District Court Judge James Ware in San Jose had earlier ruled that only search marketers who advertised for fewer than 30 days could proceed with the lawsuit.

Google had argued in court papers that it sometimes charged up to 120% of marketers budgets, but only to make up for days when it under-delivered ads.

The other participants in the class action suit will receive AdWord credits. Good to see that everyone is getting something out this right? Well, not knowing any of the actual dollar amounts that these plaintiffs claimed the case seems pretty straight forward. That is until you see that the lawyers in the case will receive $5 million from Google.

So the wronged search marketers will divvy up $15 million in AdWords credits while the lawyers take away $5 mil in cash. Now I realize that there was probably a lot of hours spent on this deal and it is 4 years old but that is a lot of scratch. Dont get me wrong, I dont want to be a lawyer. Kind of interesting though that it appears that only $40k in cash was paid to the actual people wronged while the rest will be dispensed in what are the equivalent of Google bucks. If I were one of those class action folks Id be asking to show me the money.

Of course, Google is claiming no wrong doing and lets face it, the actual cash outlay here is a mere pittance to them. A company spokesperson said: Google believes the claims are without merit, but we are pleased to have the litigation behind us and to move forward with our business objectives.

You know who else is relieved? Quite a few lawyers.

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Furl